Sonia Weymuller: Technology, venture investing and impact 

This week our TTI Interview Series covers our member Sonia Weymuller. Sonia is a Founding Partner of VentureSouq (VSQ), a GCC-based VC focused on early-stage technology ventures both regionally and globally and with a portfolio of over 180 companies. She is the Partner Lead for the VSQ Conscious Collective. Previously, she worked in corporate strategy and commercial development at Microsoft, Viacom and Turner. 

In this interview, Sonia talks about venture investing and impact, and technology’s role in it. She calls out the lack of a common language, the resource and awareness gap around impact.

Sonia Weymuller: Venture investing and impact

Sonia, tell us a little about your work and how it intersects with the impact space.

I am the Founding Partner at VentureSouq (VSQ), a GCC-based early stage investment platform with a global remit. Launched in 2013, we organically built one of the largest venture platforms in the region with a global portfolio of 180 companies. We also develop rich educational content around venture investing, and deliver it via a number of programs throughout the MENA region. 

I specifically lead the VSQ Conscious Collective, which brings together regional mission-driven investors and family offices aligned in motives and purpose. A first really for the MENA region. The investment mandate is global and we look at early-stage ventures and teams that choose to harness the power of technology to address today’s most pressing social, economic and environmental challenges.

Power of technology for impact

How do you define impact for yourself, Sonia?

The way we define impact is where we see a company harnessing the power of technology to solve immediate social, economic and environmental challenges around them. For us, it is critical that impact needs to be at the heart of the company’s mission and offering. It cannot be ancillary to what the company does. By using this lens, we ensure that impact is commensurate with the growth of the enterprise.

Healthcare, education, supply chains, and nature

What do you believe is one of the most important issues that needs to be solved over the next 10 years

I don't believe there is one sole issue that needs to be solved - there are a multitude of issues that are very much intertwined. Covid specifically has served to lay bare systemic problems within our healthcare, education, supply chains, and most importantly, our relationship with nature.

In terms of healthcare, we see how healthcare systems across the world crippled in the wake of the pandemic, we saw almost a 1 billion children being forced out of schools in 2020, we witnessed enormous shortages of critical equipment as the globalised supply-chain model crumbled, and we saw the wrath of climate change in the form of extreme weather events.

The year 2020 therefore forced a reset for all of us. The silver lining here is that in some ways the crisis enabled a radical technological shift. Postulations about technological change for the coming decade happened over a span of months. We’re now witnessing radical change in verticals like healthcare, education, and cleantech.

Lack of a common language, and resource and knowledge gaps

Tell us more about the long-term vision you have for your work and how you measure & quantify your impact.

Our long-term vision, through the Conscious Collective, is to serve as a proof that you can make financial returns while doing good at the same time. It is a belief in a new generation of entrepreneurs who are utilising technology to solve humanity’s most pressing challenges. For the region, our vision is to keep growing our tribe of mission-driven individual investors and family offices in the region who are aligned in motives and purpose and who choose to channel their capital into ventures with a positive long-term legacy. We kicked this off last year by launching the very first pan-regional Conscious Investor Fellowship focused on nurturing the next generation of mission-driven investors from the region. Our impact ultimately will be measured by the success of our founders and the impact their respective ventures have. It will also be measured by the amount of new capital from the region that we are able to channel into these ventures.

The awareness gap

Through your work, what are some of the misconceptions you’ve noticed regarding what “impact” is all about?

Awareness gap: There’s a prevalent two-pocket thinking mentality amongst investors—one for commercial investments, and one for philanthropy. It is a difficult proposition to convince them that there’s a way you can make money while doing good at the same time. This gap will eventually close with time. As more impact companies make it to the public markets, there will be greater awareness about how conscious investing is a sound commercial proposition and not just a philanthropic endeavor.