Responsibly Ventures

The firm requires portfolio companies to report Startup Impact Metrics (SIMs) annually, covering outputs such as carbon avoided, waste diverted, renewable energy capacity modeled, and life-years gained. These figures are aggregated in the firm's Annual VC Impact Report, making the data publicly available. This disclosure is a condition of backing, not an optional exercise.

The firm focuses on PreSeed, Seed, and early Start-up stages. Its portfolio page lists companies that are typically pre-revenue or early commercialization, building in categories where the environmental or social use case is inseparable from the business model.

The firm has no published exclusion list, but its positive screen — Sustainability and Social Good — means it does not back teams in extractive industries, weapons, conventional fossil fuel generation, or any business where negative externalities cannot be directly tracked and offset. The portfolio shows a preference for circularity, clean energy, digital health, privacy, and ethical consumer models.

Responsibly Ventures is structured as an asset manager running a private equity fund, not a family office. Capital sources are not publicly disclosed. The firm markets to founders and external LPs, though no Fund I size or institutional backer list has been published.

The firm argues that a startup's mission — when deeply understood and authentically executed — becomes a strategic advantage in hiring, customer acquisition, and regulatory positioning. Its published SIMs are the visible output of that claim: portfolio companies like Banqloop (decarbonizing infrastructure via AI-driven circularity) and Goodie Bag (reducing food waste through surplus marketplace access) demonstrate business models where impact and defensibility converge.

The portfolio skews heavily toward the United States, with concentrations in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Boulder, and Chicago. A smaller number of companies are based in Detroit, Pittsburgh, Washington DC, and other US cities. No international portfolio companies are listed.

All public evidence — including its naming convention as a PreSeed VC Impact Fund and the composition of its disclosed portfolio — shows only direct startup investments. There is no mention of fund-of-funds commitments, SPVs, or co-investment club structures.