Software isn’t just eating the world – it’s saving it too. Our founders are solving meaningful global problems through early-stage tech. We’re here to help them scale.
If you’re into developing solutions to tackle climate change or inequality, read on.
The great businesses of the future will solve the world's most pressing challenges – our goal is to find the best, today.
We invest in European early-stage impact ventures between pre-seed and series B.
We strive for speed and quality in our decision-making. That's why we walk every founder through a 6-step investment process designed to quickly take promising ventures from first contact point to our investment committee. We do this by prioritizing short feedback loops and granting internal buy-in as long as at least 1 senior principal and 1 partner believe in the opportunity.
Meet the people building businesses that solve problems we actually care about.
Sustainable delivery-first virtual kitchens.
Kitch is a Lisbon-based startup building delivery-first kitchens to house a selection of the city’s favorite restaurants, and most creative chefs, committed to implementing tech-based solutions to reduce food waste and improve energy efficiency in food production and delivery.
Micro-insurances for the circular economy.
Omocom offers tailored on-demand microinsurance solutions for the circular economy. It builds and develops digital systems for risk calculation, matching, design of insurance terms and claims settlement specifically for this new environment. The digital insurance solution is integrated directly into the sales flow on online platforms and it is activated only while the items are being used.
A rental marketplace for everyday items.
Rnters is redefining the future of ownership by giving access to everything while enabling people to earn extra income from previous investments. By making renting more viable than buying, Rnters will disrupt communities’ consumption patterns by tackling one of the biggest problems of our generation: overconsumption and its derived pollution. Rnters will continuously lead this path of reducing waste and avoiding unnecessary buying
Empowering HR to uncover organizations' true culture.
Platypus measures, analyses and tracks the alignment of an individual's values with the culture and values of an organisation. The solution helps transform company culture from a static, top-down mission statement into adaptable, measurable data of what employees actually value in a company. Platypus also assesses person-to-organisation alignment as culture develops over time in order to identify the areas that need further attention - minimizing the risk of losing employees.
Shaping the workforce for the digital economy by investing in the talent of tomorrow.
There are over 700k unfilled vacancies for technology roles in Europe. Mariano Kostelec, Marta Palmeiro, Miguel Santo Amaro and Sergio Pereira co-founded Student Finance to tackle this issue. Student Finance is a platform that analyses real-time job market data and partners with education providers of ‘in-demand’ skills, to finance their students through Income Share Agreements (“ISAs”).
Meet the team positioning Lisbon at the centre of European impact tech. They back climate change startups too, social tech is just a cooler buzzword.
Henry is co-founder of Mustard Seed, and a Board Member of MAZE. He was formerly a Director and Portfolio Manager at BlackRock in London, having started his career at Goldman Sachs. Henry was the recipient of the GSGL academic scholarship for social entrepreneurship and holds a First Class Honours degree from London School of Economics in Economics and Economic History. Henry serves on the board of Winnow.
António has been working in impact investment for +10 years in the UK, Canada and Continental Europe. He worked on deals that have mobilized over 200M€ into impact ventures. He founded MAZE after being an Associate at Social Finance UK. Antonio is a Global Shaper of the World Economic Forum and visiting professor of Impact Investment at NOVA SBE. Holds an MsC in Business Administration from Católica Business School.
Cristina is a management consultant turned into storyteller. She was an analyst at EY, seconded at Impact Investment Group in Australia and learned the ins and outs of startups at Mellow. Cristina has created engaging content for +50 entrepreneurs and curated dozens of unforgettable MAZE events for our partners. BsC in Economics from NOVA SBE, BsC in Political Science from ISCSP.
Orson backs entrepreneurs who are on a mission to learn while solving the world's hardest problems, focusing on consumer businesses with network effects.
Orson is a Senior Principal. Prior to Mustard Seed Maze, Orson was one of the first joiners at Mustard Seed in London in 2015, where he led investments into businesses including Mush, HireHand, Knok and Hype Labs. The last two kickstarted Orson's love affair with Portugal. Previously, Orson was at BlackRock where he worked on global product and business strategy for the Fundamental Active Equity leadership team. Outside of work, Orson is a keen CrossFitter, a Portuguese language novice and a repressed gamer.
João leads MAZE's capital advisory services, structuring some of Portugal's first seed rounds for impact ventures. Previous experience includes MaRS Centre for Impact Investment (Canada), where he was seconded to design impact portfolios for foundations and wealth managers, as well as Head of Onsite at Zalora (Rocket Internet, Singapore). João taught Social Entrepreneurship at UEM (Mozambique) and has BSc in Economics, MSc in Management from NOVA SBE.
Prior to joining the fund, Ana was a Project Management Officer at BNP Paribas where she mastered the delicate art of managing operations. Ana is also an alumnus from SheCodes and a post-grad in Applied Management at Nova SBE in Lisbon. Ana holds a MSc in Culture Studies in Lisbon, and BSc in Languages, Literature and Cultures in Lisbon and Cambridge.
