Util, a UK fintech startup that measures the social and environmental impact of companies and investment portfolios, has closed a funding round where investors included US firm Eldridge Industries and Andy Brown, former chief technology officer at UBS.
The seed funding round brought Util's total investment to date to US$5mln.
Other investors in the round were Oxford Sciences Enterprises; Cris Conde, former CEO of Sungard Bank; and Roseann Palmieri, former head of enterprise data management at Bloomberg.
London-based Util said the funding is to help expand its efforts to bridge the gap between UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and equity investing, with practical steps being hiring more employees in the UK and expanding its US presence.
Founder and chief executive Patrick Wood Uribe also said he aims to scale up operations to meet growing demand for coverage across new asset classes such as private markets and fixed income.
Util's machine-learning models demonstrate how more than 50,000 companies, and the capital tracking them, measure up to the 17 goals of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as more than 2,000 additional sustainability themes.
"Global assets in sustainable investment strategies have exploded, yet the real-world impact of those investments remains contested thanks to poor-quality data," said Patrick Wood Uribe, chief executive.
"With so much capital committed to positive social and environmental outcomes, and only eight years remaining to achieve the UN SDGs, it is critical that we arm investors with more rigorous, detailed, and transparent data than corporate disclosures or analyst opinions to guide their asset allocation decisions."
Palmieri and David Steyn, former CEO of Robeco and former COO of AllianceBernstein, were also added to the firm's board of directors.