*Dear community,
As our team has been busy building up our experience with previous funds and making over 50 investments, we have come to understand just how impactful investments can be on society and the world at large. Now, while all of us embark on our FIRSTPICK journey and begin making early-stage investments, we are eager to put our knowledge and beliefs into action.
At FIRSTPICK, we are committed to integrating our values into everything we do. As we work to accelerate early-stage startups, it's crucial that we raise awareness and educate founders on the importance of ESG values in business. We believe that it's our responsibility to make sustainable and transparent decisions in a broader sense. To that end, FIRSTPICK has developed an ESG policy and questionnaire for our portfolio startups. These documents are essential to our investment process, and we see them as hands-on tools that will continue to evolve as we do.*
At FIRSTPICK, we aim to support the best tech founders across the Baltics while maximizing returns to our funds’ investors. Our mission is to support founders from idea to growth stage by providing investment and helping businesses to accelerate.
FIRSTPICK always aims to invest responsibly. To do so, we make sure our approach to investments meets the requirements of [EuVECA](https://www.investeurope.eu/policy/key-policy-areas/euveca/#:~:text=The European Venture Capital Fund,requirement to appoint a depositary.) and follows the best practices set out in the Ten Principles of the United Nations Global Compact, the Six Principles of the United Nations Principles of Responsible Investment. FIRSTPICK considers the positive impact of portfolio companies in accordance with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. We are committed to strictly avoiding investments directly or indirectly in companies engaged in those sectors set out on the harmonized exclusion list of the European Development Finance Institutions.
This ESG policy sets out our approach to responsible investments and the processes we have set out to encourage portfolio companies to consider and manage ESG risks and opportunities. Our team considers ESG risks (environmental, social, and governance) when investing from FIRSTPICK SEED FUND and FIRSTPICK ACCEL FUND while also following our investment strategy to support the best early stage founders.
Considering the development of the new EU regulations, this policy should be viewed as an evolving document that will be developed further through a dynamic and collaborative process with founders, LPs and other players that are essential part of the funds
We commit to following this ESG policy within our organization, the funds we manage, and in collaboration with industry partners.
As we recognize the value of responsible investing, we expect our portfolio companies to be aware of the impact their business has on all stakeholders, including their employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders, the environment, and the wider world at large.
We believe that to make good investments with reduced risk and higher financial returns, our work has to be guided by an understanding of ESG risks and opportunities. We are proud to commit to the following ESG values to encompass that.
Environment
As we invest in software companies, the environmental issues are less material to our investments. However, we encourage our portfolio companies to consider employee commute, business travel, and switching to renewable energy sources for powering offices and servers, as well as consider efficient data management. We are making sure we don't invest in any of the Prohibited & high-risk sectors listed later in this policy and following best practices from EuVECA and UN.
Social
With regard to social sustainability, we are committed to diversity and inclusion in our hiring process (5 out of 8 employees are females!) and encourage the same from our portfolio companies. It's a company's responsibility to provide a healthy, safe, and inclusive work environment and culture in which employees are treated with dignity, decency, and respect. We aim to invest in companies that have a positive social impact on financial and healthcare accessibility.
Governance
We are committed to good governance practices in our own operations and expect the same from portfolio companies. Good governance in our context means: