Meet the panel - Joel Larsson, GP, Pale blue dot, Aurora Kroon, Global Art Director, Sproud, and Alfredo Jollon, CFA, Managing Director, Stockholm Techstars Accelerator, and moderated by Thathsara Palliyaguru

The future of impact investing

Sustainable investing is a topic that is increasingly on everyone's mind, and most have begun to include ESGs (environmental, social, governance) in their investment portfolios. Mainstream venture capital firms are looking for their next unicorn in companies that have a major social or economic impact beyond financial returns. We took the pulse of our panel of experts on why and how the investment sector should look at companies that solve global challenges.

Panel takeaways:

• Think wisely of who and what you support. Time to put our skills, strengths, and passion behind sustainable business models;
• Connecting innovators, the new breed of entrepreneurs, and creative minds in the social mission of saving the planet has become an important task;
• Stop investing money and energy in things with negative impacts. It's like Medusa -changes behaviors;
• Impact investing is at the risk of being marginalized or postponed as startups find it hard to raise money in the current times;
• Both non-technical and technical innovations like 6G, IoT, and next-gen quantum computing software may take the form of clean energy storage or electric battery storage;
• Technological innovations will happen but founders should be concerned about raising money for the innovations amidst a financial crisis;
• Remember bad times lead to the birth of great companies;