Pollen
Article by Alice Armitage Photography by Chaseley Barber & Indiana Chataway
“It’s exciting to see the creation of venture investing opportunities that are accessible to everyone. I’ve learnt that opportunities often flow through people and to even dabble in some small invest- ments through Pollen will hopefully allow me to see some financial gains and to be connected to the innovation environment.”
From investing in impact-focused causes to helping individuals build a deeper understand- ing of how to grow their personal wealth, the purpose-driven investing community, Pollen, is highlighting a new way to approach progressive investing with a human touch.
It’s often said that bees are responsible for one third of every bite of food we eat. Every day, bees visit hundreds of flowers, collecting their pollen. Each time they fly off to another flower, a bee leaves be- hind a mixture of other flowers’ pollen. This process of pollination helps each plant to produce seeds and continue to grow. Without the bees facilitating that transfer of pollen across all the flowers in an ecosystem, each flower would be a little stuck.
This concept of cross pollination is the foundation of the ethos behind the im- pact investing community, Pollen. Con- ceived by the business foundry, DirtLab, Pollen has been designed to centre com- munity, collaboration and education at the heart of everything they do to accel- erate the growth of sustainable and pro- gressive innovation. With a particular focus on regenerative initiatives, the Pol- len investment community is giving us all a chance to participate in the future of improving landscapes, soil and com- munities across Australia and abroad.
So what is an investment community and how does it actually work? Tradi- tionally it’s only the mega wealthy that get the opportunities to invest in early stage ventures and start-ups before they are publicly listed on the stock exchange. This class of investor is known as the wholesale investor—aka someone who has over $2.5 million in net worth, and as a result is able to access tax incentives to invest their wealth into early stage businesses. With advancements in tech- nology and with the financial licensing accessible to the Pollen community, the doors are open for investments from as little as $250, forming a new class of in- vestor known as the retail investor—aka you and I. This new category of investors has altered the venture investing land- scape as we know it, giving the everyday person a chance to support great busi- nesses that they’re connected to from the very beginning, as well as offering expo- sure to the financial benefits of support- ing a successful small business.
We’ve seen unprecedented times in re- cent history, but the upheaval and un- certainty has also seen an unprecedented increase in the financial literacy of in- dividuals, especially millennials. With increased financial literacy comes the ability for us to make informed financial choices regarding saving, investing, borrowing, and more. We’re seeing Australians eliminating consumer debt, buying houses, engaging in the stock market and building an understanding of their own appetite for risk. And, an appetite for investing directly in early stage pur- poseful businesses is growing. This has brought about a tectonic shift in the wealth distribution of the next genera- tion and amplified the individual’s pow- er to create change and opportunity with their hard-earned dollar.
Angie Robson is a digital producer for a creative agency who is doing just this, having made some investments through the community herself. “Being a part of the investment community has opened my eyes to opportunities and methods of soundly moving forward with the next steps of my financial future. Under- standing how I can support meaningful initiatives that lead to mutual success is super exciting. Participating in the edu- cation elements of the community have motivated me to diversify my own port- folio whilst I continue learning how best to navigate risk.”
Creating such a community of people that are interested in investment oppor- tunities becomes more and more valuable over time. Bringing people together as a community and continuing to engage them as they become more sophisticated in their investment styles also breeds a coalition of everyday people seeing in- novation and its possible impact through a new lens. “Our core driver is enabling access for investors who have tradition- ally not been able to access opportunities like early stage startups,” shares Pollen investment adviser, Jess Pattison. “It makes a lot of sense to enable people to invest in the businesses they care about and are potentially customers of. Allow- ing us all to see the impact on small in- novative businesses and the surrounding communities as well as benefiting from the financial returns that historically were only accessible to those who were already wealthy.”
As our own understanding of what it means to build wealth rises, so does our responsibility. Which is why Pollen is focused on a segment of the market that is so undeniably essential; sustain- ability endeavours. This impact-focused approach to investing sees an expan- sion to the funds available for social and environmental purposes, encouraging innovative approaches to solving old problems. This is a concept Australian farmers are very familiar with. When you ask the average Australian farmer about their views of the agricultural sector, you’ll usually get a lit- any of complaints about the cost of production, the lack of con- sumer understanding and the increased public perception of them as the climate villains. But we find ourselves in a unique position in the Australian agricultural sector as innovation across Australia will continue to play a critical role in solving the biggest challenges we face in the future, be that our changing climate or securing our long-term access to food and fibres. While Australia might still hold onto its legacy of digging things out of the ground and sending them abroad, we’ve also established ourselves as leaders on the world stage with progressive success stories like the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the successful implementation of carbon farming initiatives.
Australia continues to play a key role in providing solutions for the future of our planet, and with opportunities like those on offer through the Pollen investment community, as individuals we are more empowered than ever to play an active role in the futures we want to see for ourselves, our communities and the country we live on.
This notion is one that has particularly drawn Tom Winter to be interested in Pollen and what the community has on offer. Hav- ing just completed his degree in business and entrepreneurship at Bond University, Tom has returned home to the family farm and is searching for alternative ways to engage not only in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem but also in supporting solutions that could make an impact on the family’s farming operation. “It’s exciting to see the creation of venture investing opportunities that are accessible to everyone. I’m personally really interested in the valuable insights that come from investing at this level and being involved in a number of different investments in the early stages of their growth. I’ve learnt that opportunities often flow through people and to even dabble in some small investments through Pol- len will hopefully allow me to see some financial gains and to be connected to the innovation environment. The getting together of like minded people is a fantastic experience in itself,” shares Tom.
Looking beyond the opportunities for investors, Pollen also of- fers entrepreneurs the opportunity to access strategically aligned capital for their early stage business. With access to the investors through Pollen, the community hopes to provide emerging busi- nesses a leg up in the early days and to enable investors with a particular interest in that business to become strong advocates of their innovative work and to support the initial growth to find successful market traction. The wider vision for the community is then to enable founders to access continued capital from a connected base into the future when an opportunity might arise. Removing the need to start from scratch with potential investors, and instead allows members to tap into the existing community of engaged, willing individuals ready to support business builders to seize the day.
Pollen has cultivated a purpose-led economic engine and even when it isn’t making direct injections of capital, is supporting the drivers of growth for those businesses and individuals in their net- work. With the emergence of initiatives like Pollen, the future is looking bright for a progressive and sustainable future across the Australian landscape.
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