Here’s why it matters that govtech startups had a seat at the table at the UN’s Climate Conference
Govtech startups have secured at least £500 million (US$686 million) in investment over the last year. This includes mobility solutions provider Via which secured US$200 million in March, transportation robotics MIT-spinout Superpedestrian (US$60 million in December) and AI insights company Zencity (US$13.5 million in August). Additionally, venture funds like San Francisco’s Govtech Fund have had five of their portfolio companies sign term sheets for follow-on financings totaling $350M+ (ranging from $30M to $150M).
The latest VC movements in the industry are signalling that govtech can be venture backable, and no wonder why. Startups with valuable public-purpose technology are relevant to solving the complex challenges of society. And soon enough, anything that is not directly addressing the challenges of our society is poised to become irrelevant (how can any startup offer solutions on better x when x itself has gone to waste).
If we want the economy of tomorrow to be sustainable, we need to start investing in the companies of tomorrow (those setting the groundwork for sustainability) and we are not talking about just green.
In this process, it is key to convene academia, policy, technology and investment in addition to entrepreneurship, in order to maximize the shared impact of overlapping fields and movements like govtech, civtech, digital government, social impact and public interest technology.
They all share a common mission to promote the use of technology to serve a public need, engaging new and emerging technologies under the belief that innovative digital solutions can make governance (procurement, participation, urban tech, agritech, social care, open government…) better if designed and delivered appropriately.
On top of that, the emphasis on bringing startups closer to public institutions aims to instigate innovation and digitally transform governments with sustainable strategies that contribute to internal skill development and economic growth.
Programs doing just that
Last May 2021 we participated in the set up and delivery of the Global Scale-Up Programme, a multicountry accelerator set up by the CivTech Alliance and led by the Digital Directorate at the Scottish Government in the lead up of United Nation’s Climate Change Conference (COP26); the objective being to display the potential of scaleups to solve public challenges, as well as to pave the way for creating bigger and more far reaching platforms for entrepreneurs working with government and the opportunity to access global markets.
Four months later, we are glad to share that Apolitical, the first global platform for government that helps public servants find the ideas, experts and partners they need to solve the hardest challenges facing our societies has recognised the impact of the program, awarding it “Global Public Service Team of the year” in the climate heroes category.
The program has been a great way to demonstrate how to overcome national silos, and set up intragovernmental collaboration efforts to feed public sector innovation. While the program only represented a modest display of what could be done, it has been useful to prove the global nature of many of the complex challenges public administrations across the world face, and most importantly, the global appeal of startups’ solutions to these.
This shows particularly the great opportunities for business found in the public sector market, and the willingness of many participating governments to open up their supplier market to smaller ventures with innovative solutions and an agile ethos.
It involved a wide breadth of international innovators, from the NASA open innovation team and Federal Emergency Management Agency at the United States Government, to top researchers in the field of sustainability, from Ministers of Environment and International Trade, to gatekeepers to the €500m German family office funds or the High Commission for Entrepreneurship at the Spanish National Government. We had the pleasure of leading a training program at the PublicTech Lab for 18 climate tech scaleups (environmental resilience, food waste, transport decarbonization) from across the world, sharing our insights, strategy and expertise on how they can work with Spanish local, regional and national governments so that they can pilot and scale their solutions.
Having startups at the table at the United Nations’ Climate Conference under this program rendered proof that mission oriented innovation diplomacy can work, and generated a model of global collaboration between governments, fast growth businesses and academic institutions that can be replicated, transcending borders and jurisdictions.
These are just some of the milestones achived:
- Convened 8 governments and 3 not-for-profits under a multi-country programme with no mandate.
- Generated +200 introductions between public officers and startups over 69 engagement sessions across 10 countries
- Offered a multidimensional and rounded approach to enhance collective learning and collaboration.
Global Scale-Up Programme members
- Australia — Go2Gov — South Australian Government
- Brazil — BrazilLab
- Brazil — IdeiaGov, Sao Paolo Regional Government
- Brazil — InvestSP
- Denmark — Technical University of Denmark
- Estonia — Accelerate Estonia, Estonian Government
- Germany — InnoLab, Baden-Württemberg Regional Government
- Lithuania — GovTech Lab, MITA, Lithuanian Government
- Poland — GovTech Center, Polish Government
- Scotland — CivTech, Scottish Government
- Spain — PublicTech Lab, IE School of Global and Public Affairs
- United States — 10x Programme, General Services Administration, United States Government
- Check out the scale-up cohort
