Where venture meets the systems we want to change.

The 4Q25 Annual Report is our first published account of how we think about impact, measurement, and the connective work between venture capital and the systems that need it.

We are not an impact-first investor. We do not screen deals by SDG fit, and we do not believe that maximizing impact and maximizing financial return are the same problem. What we do believe is that VC-backed deep tech holds disproportionate systemic relevance to the world's most consequential challenges, and that the impact ecosystem (foundations, systemic-investing initiatives, public-sector procurement, local communities) rarely sees the technologies and teams that could actually move its needle. The two ecosystems operate in parallel rather than in conversation. Our role, as a Limited Partner across both fund managers and direct investments, is to make them legible to each other.

The report sets out how we do that work.

What is inside

A connective SDG lens. We map our portfolio (direct and look-through, 138 exposures in total) against all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals, using a two-tier direct-and-indirect framework. The mapping is not a screening tool. It is the input to identifying which of our companies are candidates for engagement with impact-first stakeholders working on the same leverage points. The report shares what we found and where the distribution surprised us.

Net Present Impact - a measurement framework built for venture. Most VC impact reporting fails the "would you bet money on this number" test. Backward-looking ESG metrics do not fit early-stage companies whose impact lives in their future state. Forward-looking numbers rarely account for venture failure rates, attribution to other actors, or the real probability that a startup reaches the scale it has pitched. Net Present Impact is our v1 methodology to close that gap. It takes the discipline of Net Present Value and repurposes it as a categorization lens for VC-backed deep tech, producing a single risk-and-time-adjusted number in each company's own primary impact unit. The full formula, its five variables, and its published discount rates by domain are set out in the report. NPI is published as a v1 methodology, not a finished framework, and we invite peers, GP partners, and impact-ecosystem stakeholders to engage with the assumptions and contribute to v2.

Five worked applications. We apply NPI to five direct investments where the framework most usefully clarifies the impact thesis, spanning critical-minerals discovery, digital health, biomanufacturing, portable desalination, and mass-timber production. Each ledger surfaces where our stewardship attention should compound most, and each is honest about the assumptions behind it.

The data intelligence layer. Impact reporting is only useful if it operates at network scale rather than as an annual exercise. The 1200vc System Mapping Platform enriches every node in our four-level network along two parallel axes: a VC-driven layer capturing industry, technology, stage, region, and connection strength; and an impact-driven layer capturing SDG relevance across every node. The two layers operate together, which lets us surface, in a single query, every company in our network with a specific SDG exposure that also shares an investor with a foundation or systemic-investing initiative working on the same problem. Version 2.0 in 2026 will open limited access to our LPs and fund-partner GPs as a network resource, not an internal tool alone.

Why we publish this

The vocabulary for measuring impact in venture capital has not caught up with what deep tech is actually doing. NPI is our first contribution to that vocabulary. The SDG mapping is our first attempt to make the portfolio legible to stakeholders who would otherwise not encounter it. And the mapping platform is the infrastructure we are building to make 1200vc structurally useful to the three communities we sit between: LPs who need transparency, GPs and founders who need network leverage, and impact-ecosystem stakeholders who need a way into VC-backed deep tech.

The full report includes methodology notes, per-company SDG classifications, year-by-year NPI ledgers, and an invitation to engage with the framework.

1200vc Team