Staying ahead of the technology curve means advancing the world we live in. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights. This time, you get to discover 8 hand-picked startups strengthening Partnerships for the Goals of the UN’s SDG #17.
Global Startup Heat Map highlights 8 Top Startups Strengthening Partnerships for the UN’s SDG #17
The insights of this data-driven analysis are derived from the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering 2.093.000+ startups & scaleups globally. The platform gives you an exhaustive overview of emerging technologies & relevant startups within a specific field in just a few clicks.
The Global Startup Heat Map below reveals the distribution of the 1.412 exemplary startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Further, it highlights 8 startups that we hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. You get to explore the solutions of these 8 startups & scaleups in this report. For insights on the other 1.404 startups strengthening the UN’s SDG #17, get in touch.
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17 Asset Management focuses on SDG-aligned Impact Investing
Access to development finance is one of the biggest challenges to overcome to achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals. Among the targets set for enabling partnerships for the UN’s goals, financial support to developing nations as well as finance for innovation and resource mobilization take priority. This has given rise to impact investing that ensures funding goes towards projects aligned with the SDGs.
Based out of the US, 17 Asset Management aligns development opportunities and challenges with the SDGs. Their place-based investing framework helps asset owners and managers become aligned with the SDGs and channel capital towards advancing the SDGs in developed and developing countries alike. In this way, the financial services startup designs solutions blending catalytic capital providers with long-term investors to achieve SDG-aligned outcomes.
SDG House enables Capacity Building & Collaboration
Essential to achieving the SDGs, capacity building and field development form an important set of targets for strengthening partnerships for the goals. This includes capacity building to enhance international support for implementing effective and targeted projects in developing countries. Increasing collaboration among nations is also important to strengthen partnerships, especially for small island nations. The UN recognizes the importance of locally-driven development and encourages governments, organizations, academic institutions, and individuals to improve a range of indicators. These include increasing the proportion of individuals with access to the internet and committing financial resources towards the implementation of the SDGs.
SDG House is a Netherlands-based community of experts, entrepreneurs, and NGOs who work towards achieving one or more of the SDGs. Established by the KIT Royal Tropical Institute, SDG House operates as a regional or municipal hotspot for sustainability events and entrepreneurship, convening government officials, businesses, civil society, and the general public to work together by combining their energy, efforts, means, and knowledge to increase their impact.
UNLEASH promotes SDG Innovation Collaboration
The UN’s SDG #17 aims to fully operationalize the science, technology, and innovation capacity-building mechanism for the least developed countries and enhance the use of enabling technology, in particular information and communications technology (ICT). By encouraging the development of innovation projects globally, the SDG targets effective knowledge and technology transfer to developing nations. Such measures bring equity to development finance as well as local development outcomes.
UNLEASH is a Danish nonprofit organization promoting innovation initiatives bringing together global talent to work on scalable solutions that progress the SDGs. The organization hosts hackathons for localized innovation processes that address sustainability challenges in specific contexts. Further, UNLEASH+ is a pre-accelerator for early-stage solutions, with the aim of bridging the gap between building a prototype and reaching users and customers with a solution. The UNLEASH community also provides innovators with access to external experts, investors, and partners to implement their sustainable ideas.
LetsEndorse builds Multi-Stakeholder Technology Platforms & Tools
Rapid advancements in internet penetration and technology platforms enable emerging social impact startups and organizations to enhance policy coherence for sustainable development. Such technology solutions establish and implement policies for poverty eradication and sustainable development through multi-stakeholder partnerships. The targets of the UN’s SDG #17 also stress the importance of supporting locally-driven initiatives to prevent the imposition of goals and targets that may be out of reach for some countries.
LetsEndorse is an Indian digital marketplace and social network dedicated to social development aligned with the SDGs. LetsEndorse’s multi-stakeholder technology platforms and tools enable operational and financial efficiencies and provide transparency in the process of bringing change. The platforms also allow social impact innovations to reach last-mile communities through partnerships with grassroots organizations and local governments. Further, the startup facilitates development capital in the form of large-scale philanthropy, corporate social responsibility (CSR) investments, venture capital, and international finance to maximize their social returns.
World Wide Generation (WWG) offers a Global SDG Project Management Platform
To strengthen the partnerships for the goals, multi-stakeholder partnerships that mobilize and share knowledge, expertise, technology, and financial resources are required. Such global partnerships management for government initiatives, private sector corporate social responsibility, and collaboration platforms support the achievement of the SDGs in all countries. Through such partner engagement, the UN expects to achieve sustainable policy coordination and coherence.
British FinTech startup World Wide Generation builds a digital sustainability management and reporting tool, G17Eco. Leveraging Industry 4.0 technologies, G17Eco is an open architecture platform that enables partners to connect and deliver effective and scalable products and services. The G17Eco global project management system utilizes data bots and distributed ledger technology (DLT) to automate the mapping, monitoring, measuring, managing, and marketing of stakeholders’ contributions to the SDGs. WWG’s platform also incorporates many layers of technology infrastructure, taxonomies, and governing councils, as well as provides interoperability with sectors, systems, and apps.
AI for Good creates SDG Progress Measurement Solutions
One of the key targets of the UN’s SDG #17 is to improve statistical capacity building in all countries. By 2030, the UN aims to build on existing initiatives to develop measurements of progress on SDGs that complement national gross domestic product (GDP) targets. This SDG also targets a significant increase in the availability of high-quality, timely, and reliable data disaggregated by income, gender, age, race, ethnicity, migratory status, disability, geographic location, and other characteristics relevant in national contexts. Emerging startups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) build AI-based solutions to collect, analyze, monitor, and report SDG progress.
US-based nonprofit AI for Good leverages AI to measure and accelerate progress towards the UN SDGs. The foundation creates impact by bringing together a network of interdisciplinary researchers, nonprofits, governments, and corporate actors to identify, prototype, and scale solutions that contribute towards the SDGs. For example, their Sustainable AI Policy initiative assists governments, think tanks, and policy groups to collaborate and develop AI policy frameworks. The nonprofit also provides the SDG Launchpad to help schools, colleges, universities, or research institutes easily create and manage a curriculum that bridges the gap between emerging data-driven technologies and the SDGs.
17 Ways specializes in SDG-focused Business-to-Business (B2B) Purchasing
With an increasing number of SDG-focused initiatives, emerging eCommerce companies see an opportunity to accelerate sustainable practices. B2B purchasing is currently a multi-trillion dollar sector based on profit maximization and cost-cutting. This leads to unsustainable sourcing practices that undermine the progress made towards the SDGs. That is why startups are building online marketplaces enabling B2B companies to sustainably procure the materials and products required for their businesses.
US-based eCommerce startup 17 Ways builds a marketplace that allows purchases to be tracked against the 17 SDGs. Companies using the platform search for the goods or services they need, select the SDGs they want to impact in the process and later observe the impact of their decisions. Moreover, the 17 Ways B2B exchange platform allows companies of all sizes to request suppliers and vendors who are specifically aligned with the SDGs.
GoNatuur provides an SDG-focused Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Marketplace
As individuals, it is difficult to understand how small changes in behavior impact the global push towards achieving the SDGs. While consumers are becoming more aware of the impact of unsustainable practices on the environment, they still tend to prefer convenience. To help individuals shift towards sustainable practices, startups and scaleups build platforms that easily connect consumers to sustainable products and services.
Singapore-based startup GoNatuur is a B2C social commerce marketplace curating organic, natural, and healthcare products from businesses with purposes aligned with the 17 SDGs. By creating an inclusive supply chain for circular economy impact, the startup provides sustainability, fair-trade, social, and environmental benefits as by-products of using their platform. In addition to supplying sustainable products, GoNatuur also educates consumers about the sustainability impact of their purchases, allowing them to buy everyday products that contribute towards achieving the SDGs.
Discover more Startups
Startups such as the examples highlighted in this report focus on zero hunger, no poverty, clean water & sanitation as well as taking climate action. While all of these technologies play a major role in advancing the UN’s SDGs, they only represent the tip of the iceberg. To explore more technologies, simply get in touch to let us look into your areas of interest. For a more general overview, you can download one of our free Industry Innovation Reports to save your time and improve strategic decision-making.
