Blog

In early April, RIAA member and fintech startup Bloom launched Australia’s first climate focused impact investing app, targeting retail investors. RIAA spoke with Bloom’s founder Camille Socquet-Clerc about Bloom.

 

What was your motivation for starting Bloom? What was the market gap you identified?

 

I started Bloom with the end goal of making a scalable positive climate impact. Impact investing can be a huge catalyst for change – what if we harnessed it with a sole focus to fight climate change?

 

After two years working for a leading cleantech and clean energy startup accelerator EnergyLab, I learnt about the huge growth opportunity that the cleantech industry and clean energy transition was bringing – both in financial terms and impact terms –  and started my personal journey to invest in these specific industries.

 

Unfortunately, products available to retail investors were complete greenwashing, and impactful investments were restricted to sophisticated and wholesale investors. I was stuck in the “impact investing desert” – not rich enough to access climate impact investing, and too aware to fall for the greenwashing products. There was no option for retail investors to access alternative investments or clean energy infrastructure assets. I thought it was time to create a way for people to own and benefit from our clean energy transition.

 

You recently launched the Climate Impact Fund. Tell us about the fund and the investment philosophy behind it.

 

Bloom’s vision is to democratise climate impact investing. We offer exposure to clean energy alternative and infrastructure assets; whilst offering a diversified and liquid investment product suited for retail investors.

 

The fund, managed by Daniel East (former Chief Investment Officer at Future Super, benefiting from 35+ years experience in financial services and ethical investing) allows investors to invest in 95 climate impact assets in one trade, giving exposure to Australian equities; international equities; unlisted infrastructure entities and/or projects; listed bonds or debt securities; unlisted bonds, debt securities and loan platforms.

 

In other words, the Bloom Climate Impact Fund is a diversified, multi-asset growth fund with a $500 minimum for individuals and $5,000 for trusts and self-managed super funds. Our investment philosophy is to go beyond a simple ESG screen and impact theme. Our philosophy is to invest in a range of 82+ science-based climate solutions, to make a positive impact but also to benefit from mega-growth trends such as the electrification of our transport system, the growth in energy storage supply-chains and the global shift to renewable energy. The fund suits individuals, self-managed super funds and trusts, who seek a long-term investment product that is diversified (across asset classes but also across industries and geographies), positioned for growth, and genuinely impactful.

 

What’s your methodology for selecting investments with regards to their climate credentials? Has it been straight forward to find appropriate investments and maintain diversity across asset classes and liquidity? How will you report individual impact to investors?

 

We have a developed a unique impact investing methodology, anchored in climate science. Greenwashing is a big issue we’re passionate about tackling. Bloom does science-based investing, not just “thematic” investing or negative ESG screening like so many ETFs. We use two of the most robust climate science models – Project Drawdown and ClimateWorks to define our investment universe.

 

Project Drawdown has modelled how society can transform to a net zero economy. It outlines 82 climate solutions and practices that can halt the production of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere by 2050. These independent knowledge pillars guide our positive climate impact modelling in-house. We then have an experienced Investment Committee made of three senior experts to guide us with complex investment decisions and long-term impact strategy; made of Adam Verwey (Founder of Future Super); Melanie Madders (Director at Clean Energy Finance Corporation) and Marine Dehayes (Research and Analysis Manager at ClimateWorks Australia).

 

We report on impact to investors by accessing our climate impact research via the app (for each asset, we detail why we selected the asset and how it relates to a science-based climate solution. We write case studies and impact stories on our assets and share them via the app as well. Finally, on the engagement side of things, we invite C-suite executives from the companies and organisations we invest in for webinars and Q&A with our audience. This way, our investors can directly ask the right and tough sustainability and impact questions to people in charge in these companies. We have these events for free to our members once to twice a month.

 

We are working on our quantitative measurement model to unpack our portfolio temperature alignment as well as our transition impact (measured in GHG and Co2e emissions reductions) and will be making our impact even more transparent in the future.

 

What kind of take-up are you getting for the fund and what’s next on the agenda?

 

We are over the moon with our results, in just three weeks of launching, we’ve been able to mobilise $500,000 and onboard close to 100 investors via the app.

 

Next, we would love to scale our funds under management so we can deploy even more funds into direct impact assets. We also want to refine our impact measurement and communication strategy.

 

As well as being an impact investing vehicle for others, Bloom itself has received funding from impact investors. What attracted impact investors to invest in Bloom?

 

The key to convincing investors was the sincerity of our “why”. They could see, through our journey, our research and impact methodology, that we were sincerely building Bloom to make a positive impact – it was not an after-thought, and we weren’t developing a product to simply take advantage of a trend.

 

Beyond the impact, we convinced investors by demonstrating traction (we had over 600 investors on our app waitlist) and the potential for a sustainable and profitable business model. Impact investors loved to see Bloom positioned at the intersection of 3 mega-trends: the growth in retail investor investing online, the rising demand for ethical investing products and the long-term returns and growth prospect of cleantech and clean energy, which can be easily substantiated by indexes such as the Deloitte Cleantech Index or the S&P Global Clean Energy Index.

 

 

 

Camille Socquet-Clerc is an experienced digital marketer, community builder and climate action design thinker.

​

She founded Bloom after working at Australia’s leading cleantech startup accelerator, EnergyLab, where she witnessed how an enormous funding gap prevented technical solutions from making an impact on a better climate future. She’s dedicated to building a powerhouse team to transform the financial system and empower every Australian to use their investment power to create a better climate future. She is a member of the Sustainability Advisory Group at Gateway Bank.