Despite a global downturn in climate tech investment reported by Dealroom, The Sustainability Group has increased its valuation fivefold since its launch three years ago, amassing £2.7 million in total funding.

The newly acquired funds will be channelled into further development of the FuturePlus platform and its product portfolio, hiring new staff, and bolstering client growth through marketing and PR initiatives.

Over the past year, FuturePlus has expanded its client base by 50% and increased its workforce by 29%. It now serves over 300 clients across diverse sectors, including finance, hospitality, technology, the built environment, and retail. The platform is rapidly extending its global reach, with established presences in the USA, the Caribbean, Australia, Mauritius, and Ukraine, alongside its existing clientele in the UK and EMEA.

FuturePlus assists its global clients in managing their sustainability goals across five key themes: Climate, Economic, Diversity & Inclusion, Social, and Environment. With rising demand for robust risk management procedures and policies tied to financial metrics, FuturePlus enables clients to address ESG concerns with precision. Notable clients benefiting from the platform include Soho House, Moda Living Management, Lore Group, London and Regional, England and Wales Cricket Board, Football Foundation, Totally Money, With Intelligence, and partners such as Sustainable Ventures, CorpCare, International Real Estate Partners (IREP), and Sustainable Spa Association.

FuturePlus has also joined the Virgin StartUp Community, aligning with prominent businesses like Notion, Krystal, Fiverr, Virgin Money, HubSpot, Sage, and Dell Technologies. This new community offers early-stage startups and entrepreneurs access to guidance, 1:1 mentoring, events, and online resources to support their growth.

FuturePlus stands out as the only platform making sustainability and ESG management and reporting accessible, affordable, and achievable for all businesses and investments. By joining the Virgin StartUp Community, it furthers its mission to support UK businesses in building responsibly and equitably across its five themes.

In the past year, FuturePlus clients have set over 4,200 sustainability ambitions and achieved more than 2,700 of these goals, showcasing significant progress in their sustainability scores. This demonstrates the platform’s effectiveness in helping companies improve their sustainability maturity, leading to long-term positive impacts and enhanced business resilience.

FuturePlus also tracks its own sustainability using its platform and currently contributes positively to 16 of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), having reduced its scope 1 and 2 emissions by 36%.

The FuturePlus assessment features straightforward yet rigorous indicators aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and built on recognised sustainability standards, ESG certification indexes, and industry frameworks.

Alexandra Smith, Co-Founder and Partner at FuturePlus, comments: “Our growth momentum this year has been tremendous, and we’re set to continue on this trajectory thanks to the support of our investors. The importance of ESG data and insights being both verifiable and forward-looking will only become increasingly important, and we are thrilled that we are addressing this for not only our clients but the capital markets and the new community created by Virgin StartUp. They have all recognised the power of FuturePlus’ unique approach to sustainability for businesses of all sizes worldwide and the importance of enabling companies to consistently track, measure and improve their sustainability through incremental and ongoing improvements.”

The Sustainability Group has also expanded its Board of Directors to bring in additional insights, skills, and opportunities to support its accelerated growth phase, with Non-Executive Director, CEO and Founder of Ridgeback Partners, Ashish Devi-King, becoming Chairman. Ridgeback has raised >$25 million USD for disruptive technology businesses to date. In addition, Darren Smith, previously Head of Asia Pacific Consulting at Wood Mackenzie and a partner at CMAI (later acquired by US data giant IHS), has been appointed as a Board Advisor.

Mike Penrose, Co-Founder and Partner at FuturePlus, adds: “With our product development roadmap for 2024 and beyond, we are able to consistently enable customers to constantly manage the financial demands implied by ESG regulations both locally and internationally. Our platform empowers businesses to manage risk and assess how to address sustainability concerns effectively. Our expanded Board will help see the deployment of our products and the ongoing innovation to standardise the approach to managing and reporting sustainability for our global customer base. Darren brings first-hand experience in scaling a data business to exit and a deep understanding of enterprise requirements for large multi-territory clients, particularly in the Asia Pacific region. Ashish has worked closely with us for almost three years, navigating us through our fundraises, which have seen strong valuation growth for our shareholders, despite challenging market conditions. His strategic guidance has also contributed to our success to date.”

Ashish Devi-King, Chairman at The Sustainability Group, continues:  “After having met a plethora of poorly thought-through ESG concepts with limited data potential, FuturePlus demonstrated strategic rigour, forward-thinking tech architecture and an intuitive, data-driven UX that works with any company. Therefore, it’s no surprise that the month-on-month revenue trending was one of the best that I had seen, and that the valuation has grown 5x from seed to the current and overfunded round closing today.”

Darren Smith, Board Advisor at The Sustainability Group, concludes: “After many years in the consulting industry, I noticed a growing need in client companies for an achievable sustainability strategy. FuturePlus’ innovative platform married with the co-founders' deep knowledge, passion and commitment for sustainability, made my decision to invest an easy one. I look forward to providing my experience as a board advisor in supporting the company to scale and access new markets.”