We invest in people on a mission to build sustainable systems and healthy communities


  • Making more with less

  • Reduce and reuse waste

  • Regenerative circular supply chains for apparel and other consumer products


  • Education for employability

  • Compensate people for personal data

  • Jobs and economic empowerment

  • Housing solutions

Meet the team at Buckhill

The Buckhill team has collectively made over $5 billion of institutional equity and credit investments.

Updates

FFC’s Custom Assessments Complement Worldly’s Social, Labor and Sustainability Data and Compliance Solutions, Underscoring Worldly as the Most Comprehensive ESG Impact Intelligence Platform for the Fashion, Footwear and Consumer Goods Industries

August 2, 2023 – SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Worldly, the planet’s most comprehensive Impact Intelligence platform, announced today that it has acquired the assets of Fair Factories Clearinghouse (FFC). FFC builds scalable software that facilitates continuous improvements in social, environmental and security issues, resulting in safer, more humane working conditions for workers in consumer goods production supply chains. Its social and labor assessments complement the Higg Facility Social & Labor Module – also hosted on Worldly – providing factories, brands and retailers a more robust, integrated solution on Worldly’s ESG impact intelligence platform.

“We’re delighted to welcome FFC’s employees, customers and stakeholders to Worldly and to add FFC solutions to the Worldly platform. Companies urgently need primary data to inform their social, labor and sustainability programs. We believe that the work of NGOs, like FFC, will benefit from the capital and technology Worldly can offer, enabling them to scale and deliver impact faster,” said Scott Raskin, Worldly’s CEO. “Having access to that intelligence in one place increases the efficiency and lowers the cost and overhead of administering their Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) programs. By coming together, we offer the industry’s broadest and deepest primary ESG data solutions.”

Responsible business conduct and corporate compliance is becoming more complex as the public and governments increasingly demand that companies visibly manage their entire supply chain to adhere to social, environmental, security and safety requirements. FFC helps businesses stay ahead by providing collaborative, flexible and cost-effective technology, training tools and solutions for efficient and effective management of supply chain compliance.

FFC’s platform enables brands to customize social impact assessments for facilities or verifiers and maps this content to both internal and common codes of conduct or standards. The system processes data and generates action plans and ratings for the facilities to improve their performance. This enables brands to identify improvement opportunities and track remediation activity quickly. By evolving FFC’s non-profit enterprise with additional capital and resources, Worldly will better serve the industry and customers through FFC’s solutions, enabling continuous industry improvement.

“As we considered the ideal company to acquire FFC’s assets to scale our success to date, Worldly was at the top of our list,” said Peter Burrows, FFC Executive Director. “Worldly has deep roots in the social and labor space within fashion and footwear, and it is acutely aware of how to develop best-in-class assessment technology, collect the primary data and generate the insights from it that our users need to run their social and labor programs. We’re very excited that FFC is now part of Worldly and look forward to continuing to evolve our services and growing the value we deliver to our users.”

Click here to read the full announcement

Buckhill Capital has invested in Anthropic, a pioneering artificial intelligence Large Language Model (LLM) platform focused on developing human-oriented AI systems. 

Anthropic is an AI research company founded by OpenAI alumni and researchers, dedicated to advancing AI safety and addressing the long-term consequences of AI systems. The company’s mission is to create AI technologies that are both useful and aligned with human values, ensuring a positive impact on society. Anthropic is working on developing scalable, safe, and robust AI systems that can be controlled and understood by humans. 

Buckhill shares Anthropic’s mission to build AI systems that are not just intelligent but also understandable, interpretable, and aligned with human values.  Henrik Jones, Managing Partner at Buckhill Capital, expressed his enthusiasm: “In the new age of AI, we believe that Anthropic has the potential to create a positive humancentric LLM, and we are excited to be a part of this transformative journey.”

About Buckhill Capital: Buckhill invests in people on a mission to build sustainable systems and healthy communities. Buckhill provides expansion stage capital for companies with proven products.

About Anthropic: Anthropic is a pioneering large language model (LLM) AI company focused on AI safety. Claude by Anthropic was created to be an AI assistant that adheres to the core principles: helpful (provides useful information and avoids harmful, incorrect, or misleading information), Harmless (avoids harmful behaviors or causing negative consequences to humans), and  Honest (provides truthful and factually accurate information to humans with no intention to deceive people).

Only Worldly delivers the complete value chain view essential to enable fashion, outdoor and home goods brands to reduce their impacts and comply with ESG regulation – at scale

Most businesses want to do right by their customers and the planet, which is why today we’re unveiling Worldly, the planet’s most comprehensive Impact Intelligence platform.  

Already relied upon by more than 40,000 of the most iconic brands, retailers, suppliers and manufacturers in the world —  from fashion to home goods — Worldly offers companies real data — specific to their supply chain, products and operations — all in one place so they can understand their true impact and compliance position.

Read the full press release here

Buckhill Capital has joined the Council for Inclusive Capitalism, a global movement of leaders dedicated to promoting a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism

The Council for Inclusive Capitalism is a non-profit organization for global business leaders and investors who are committed to using capitalism as a force for doing business that benefits people, our communities, and the planet. By joining the Council, Buckhill is part of a growing community of investors and business leaders who are committed to using capitalism to drive positive social and environmental change.

The Council represents $10.5 Trillion in Asset Under Management, $2.1 Trillion in Market Capitalization, and 200 Million workers spread across 163 countries. Steward members of the Council for Inclusive Capitalism make actionable commitments aligned with the World Economic Forum International Business Council’s Pillars for sustainable value creation — People, Planet, Principles of Governance, and Prosperity — and that advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. By working together, we can create a more just and equitable world.

The organization’s members come from a wide range of industries and geographies and include CEOs of major corporations, asset managers, and academics. Together, they seek to promote a more inclusive and sustainable form of capitalism by sharing best practices, collaborating on initiatives, and working together to create positive change.

Consistent with the Council’s mission, Buckhill Capital invests in companies that create sustainable systems and foster healthy communities, Buckhill is committed to creating long-term value for its investors and society as a whole.

If you share our mission, we invite you to Join the Council.

To read in pdf, click here

Let’s convert food waste into something productive for the planet!

Buckhill shares Mill’s obsession with regenerating food waste. We are thrilled that Matt Rogers, Harry Tannenbaum and the Mill team have created a smart home device to convert excess food into healthy ingredients to be reused in food production. Mill has created a new circular economy from farmer to consumer and back to farmer which reduces food waste emissions, a major contributor to greenhouse gases. Matt and Harry are serial entrepreneurs who created Nest. Previously, Matt was instrumental in creating Apple’s first iPod, first iPhone and first iPad. Buckhill is pleased to have supported this extraordinary team by investing in Mill’s Series A and B. We hope you join us in turning the food waste system into a regenerative food system.

To learn more and sign up for Mill membership, visit mill.com and secure your Mill Membership with a refundable deposit of $33.

About Mill Industries Inc. (“Mill”)
Mill was founded in 2020 by Matt Rogers and Harry Tannenbaum, who worked together at Nest, building the iconic Nest Learning Thermostat and other smart home products. The lessons they learned about encouraging new habits at home that are good for people and the planet are incredibly relevant to changing our perception of waste, starting in the kitchen.

About Buckhill Capital
Buckhill invests in people on a mission to build sustainable systems and healthy communities. Buckhill provides expansion stage capital for companies with proven products.

Dear Friends of Buckhill:

We hope 2023 brings peace and health to the world.  The last few years have been so tough for so many.

The pandemic and other crises remind us of the virtues that we hold dear.  Among the most important is to care for people experiencing hardship.  Over the last year, we have allocated a portion of our investment gains to organizations bettering the health of communities including the Human Needs Project, Anti-Corruption Foundation, Center for Investigative Reporting, Edible Schoolyard Project, Battery Foundation and National Bank of Ukraine.  Thank you to the portfolio companies whose success has made these donations possible – we are most grateful that you have joined us on this shared journey.

Hoping that 2023 brings joy to you and those around you – and a happier world.

Ash, Crystal and Henrik

A former Uber employee created an app to help drivers. The platforms that hire them are fighting back.

Uber says its drivers average $30 an hour. The delivery service DoorDash says its drivers make at least $25. In reality, many of their drivers aren’t sure how much they make when taking all their costs into account.

David Pickerell discovered this while working as an operations manager at Uber from 2015 to 2017. It didn’t seem fair, he said, that drivers didn’t have access to the same information he had sitting behind his computer.

“The information is there — we’re just not empowering people,” he said. “Why wouldn’t we tell the driver and help them with that math?”

So Mr. Pickerell left Uber and built his own app, Para. Released last year, the free app aims to give gig economy workers more information about their work to help them maximize their earnings — even as the platforms that dispatch them resist.

The app’s most popular feature allowed DoorDash drivers to know the tip for each job before they accepted it. Other than in New York City (where, since last year, apps have been required to show tips in advance), DoorDash hides that figure from drivers, even though most customers set the tip when they place their order.

Para also lets drivers set parameters to juggle multiple apps, automatically decline low-paying gigs and flag rude customers and undesirable locations, such as confusing apartment complexes and restaurants with long waits.

The app offers a tiny form of resistance against the dominance of the large companies that dispatch millions of drivers to deliver pizza, groceries, prescriptions or marijuana at the tap of a button. The drivers work as independent contractors, or freelancers, and get paid by the job, not the hour. DoorDash, Uber, Instacart, Grubhub, Lyft, Caviar, Eaze, Postmates, Amazon Flex, Walmart Spark and Shipt all use this model.

Para is growing in popularity as on-demand delivery services are under fire from all sides: They are largely unprofitable, and investors are pressuring them to cut costs. Restaurants, which relied on delivery as a lifeline during the pandemic, are fed up with the fees they charge.

Drivers, many of whom started working for multiple apps in recent years, have expressed frustration over their pay, particularly as gas prices fluctuate. The Federal Trade Commission said this month that it would crack down on unfair and deceptive practices around wages by the on-demand delivery apps.

Para hasn’t exactly been welcomed by the gig companies. DoorDash sent a cease-and-desist letter last summer, shortly after the app had started, saying that it was illegal for drivers to use their DoorDash credentials on Para and that data traffic from Para was so high it had “destabilized” DoorDash’s platform more than once. Mr. Pickerell responded by offering to have a conversation, and he never heard back.

In July, DoorDash tightened the security controlling how drivers log into its app, cutting off Para from it. Each time Para created a workaround, DoorDash quashed it with a new update within hours, Mr. Pickerell said. After a few weeks of cat-and-mouse, Para gave up, ending workers’ ability to use the app with DoorDash.

“Getting in a daily engineering war was not sustainable,” Mr. Pickerell said.

DoorDash does not show full tip amounts for “orders that contain larger tips” in advance “to ensure all Dashers have an equal chance at receiving high-value orders,” said Rachel Bradford, a spokeswoman. When drivers take only orders with big tips, it “harms the experience” for customers and merchants, she continued. Further, third-party apps that require drivers to share login credentials are “a concerning safety and security risk.”

Last week, Uber also sent Para a cease-and-desist letter. Uber declined to comment.

Harry Campbell, the founder of “The Rideshare Guy,” a blog and podcast for gig workers, said there was “inherent tension” between the ride-hailing platforms and their workers. Drivers want fewer drivers on the road, giving them less competition for the best-paying orders and more bonuses. But the platforms want the opposite — slightly more drivers than orders, to keep the service reliable and consistent.

“That inherent tension always leads to issues,” Mr. Campbell said.

DoorDash came under fire for using tips to subsidize driver payments, a practice it stopped after an outcry, and lawsuits, in 2019. In 2020, Uber gave its drivers more flexibility to turn down lower-paying rides in its push for a California ballot measure that would keep drivers as independent contractors. A year later, after the measure had passed, drivers accused Uber of taking away that flexibility. The company made changes to address the complaints in recent weeks.

Other apps have offered drivers various tools over the years, but none have directly undermined the delivery apps as Para did with its hidden-tip feature. The company claims that its app has more users — 100,000 logging on each week and more than 400,000 downloads — than any others trying to give drivers more information about their take-home pay.

Para began as a pandemic project. When Covid-19 first began to spread, it was not clear whether gig workers qualified for government assistance. Mr. Pickerell, 31, built a website, Autonomy.jobs, which scraped government sites and told people how to get money on various timelines.

That idea — making useful information more accessible — formed the philosophy of Para. Mr. Pickerell noticed that more gig workers were driving for several apps at a time, so he built an earnings tracker that allowed them to calculate their income in one place. He persuaded drivers to try it by promoting it in online forums, in Facebook groups and on YouTube, and he quickly discovered that the drivers who made the most money were the ones who juggled apps and chose the best-paying gigs.

Doing that required savvy decision-making — calculating the time, mileage and gas required for a job while driving amid app pings.

“We basically said, ‘What can we do to help people do this safer and get more competition for their time?’” Mr. Pickerell said.

Para does not yet have a business model. But it recently raised $11 million in funding from investors including Brand Foundry and GGV Capital. Some of the company’s backers previously invested in the delivery apps that Para is needling, such as GSR Ventures, which backed Didi, the Uber of China.

Yuechen Zhao, an investor at GSR Ventures who also worked at Uber, said Mr. Pickerell’s pitch to give drivers more power resonated with him. The platforms are huge and wield their control like market makers, often leaving drivers in the lurch.

“They don’t know what the platforms are going to do next,” he said. “There is a lot of mistrust between workers and these platforms.”

The app took off last May, when Para began offering its tip-transparency feature. Luke Brewer, a driver in Rocky Mount, N.C., heard about it through YouTube.

“I thought it was, like, the best thing in the world,” he said. He aims to make from $50 to $75 a night, which means turning down a lot of gigs. A no-tip order from Red Lobster could mean less than $3 for 30 minutes of work during a peak time, he said.

“They’re relying on tips too much to make up the difference,” he said of the apps.

Similar apps have battled with the platform companies. The app Mystro, released in 2017, let drivers switch easily between Uber and Lyft. Lyft blocked it in 2019, though Mystro has since found a workaround and plans to expand to DoorDash soon, according to Douglas Feigelson, the chief executive. The app has thousands of drivers, who each pay $18 a month to use it, Mr. Feigelson said. Lyft declined to comment.

Other services that aim to help drivers include Muver, which charges drivers from $2 to $6 a week to help them manage multiple apps at once; Solo, which gives gig workers working across multiple apps a guaranteed daily rate; and Gridwise, which tracks drivers’ earnings and mileage.

In some cases, the delivery companies have made Para’s features irrelevant. Soon after Para began showing Grubhub drivers how many miles each trip required, Grubhub began showing that information to its drivers, too.

In September, Uber announced a slate of changes for drivers, including sharing a trip’s destination and its pay in advance, and sending them several trips to choose from.

Stephanie Vigil, a driver who works for multiple apps in Colorado Springs, Colo., started using Para last year. “It ends up increasing your earnings because you’re not wasting your time on anything,” she said. “I’m not going to take anything that’s not a solid offer because I don’t have to.”

The hidden-tip feature was crucial before it was cut off, she said, because cash tips disappeared in the pandemic with contactless delivery. If the customer doesn’t tip in advance, one probably isn’t coming.

“You don’t think about people you don’t see in person,” Ms. Vigil said.

Originally appeared in The New York Times. Read in PDF.

Buckhill Capital invested in Pallet, a company building transitional shelter villages at the speed and scale required to address the humanitarian crisis of homelessness.  Pallet shelter villages provide the dignity and security of private living units in a community along with on-site social services, food, showers and laundry.

“At Pallet, we envision a world where no one goes unsheltered,” said Amy King, CEO of Pallet. “Buckhill shares that vision, and we’re grateful to have them beside us as we expand access to shelter and meaningful employment for the marginalized in our communities.”

When Pallet set out to design a personal shelter for people experiencing homelessness, Pallet founder & CEO Amy King and her team asked people experiencing homelessness what they needed to improve their lives.  Pallet’s shelter villages are more effective at transitioning people into permanent housing because many Pallet employees who build Pallet’s shelters have experienced homelessness, addiction, or the criminal system themselves.   

“Pallet provides a bridge from homeless living to permanent housing,” said Henrik Jones of Buckhill Capital. “Amy King and the Pallet team have a significant backlog of orders because their shelters are easy and cost-effective for cities and municipalities to deploy.”

Pallet has two social purpose goals:

  • End unsheltered homelessness: For the more than half a million people facing homelessness in America, Pallet’s shelter villages are a route out of personal crisis and into a life of greater stability.
  • Develop a nontraditional workforce: Pallet hires and invests in people actively engaged in recovery and reintegration, and the majority of employees have personally experienced homelessness, addiction, or incarceration.

Buckhill invested in the Series A round with other investors, including Gratitude Railroad, DBL Ventures, Citi, Astia, Star Equity, Barton Ventures II, and Autodesk. 

Read in pdf here

SAN FRANCISCO, April 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Higg, the sustainability insights platform for the consumer goods industry, today announced its $50M Series B funding round. The funding is co-led by technology growth investor Silversmith Capital Partners and Tom Steyer and Katie Hall’s Galvanize Climate Solutions, along with participation by Series A partners Titan Grove and Buckhill Capital. With close to 50,000 brand and manufacturer users in 100+ countries, Higg enables continuous improvement of supply chain sustainability—across not only carbon but water, energy, and labor impacts as well. This funding will accelerate Higg’s delivery of innovative technology solutions and its rapid expansion into new consumer goods categories such as outdoor, automotive, toys, and home goods.

Higg’s Series B comes as companies face growing expectations for ESG (environmental, social, and governance) accountability and disclosure. Regulations are currently being developed in the EU and US for supply chain due diligence, in addition to recent guidelines for product labeling and sustainability claims. Shoppers are also seeking greater product-level transparency about the goods they purchase. 

“In this new era of expectations, more businesses will be required to have credible impact data about their supply chains. “The truth is that measuring owned operations is easy,” said Higg CEO, Jason Kibbey. “For consumer products companies, the challenge is obtaining accurate data on the non-owned factories that make the goods—and on the materials and products themselves.”

“That’s why we’re thrilled to have Silversmith and Galvanize supporting us,” Kibbey continued. “Silversmith brings experience in SaaS innovation that’s needed to scale our technology and Tom Steyer’s effort at Galvanize is the perfect complement given their emphasis in climate solutions. We’re excited to tap into their expertise so that Higg becomes a critical source for ESG information through the value chain and across sectors.” 

Trusted by major brands as well as tens of thousands of manufacturers across the world, data on the Higg platform is used to design more sustainable products, to expand worker well-being, and to identify suppliers with reduced impact across emissions, water, chemicals, and waste. While many sustainability solutions offer high-level estimates of a business’ impact, Higg provides primary data specific to a business’ sourcing and value chain, within consistent, comparable industry frameworks. This unique top-down bottom-up approach to performance data has distinguished Higg in a growing market. 

“What the Higg team has done in marrying powerful and easy-to-use software with proprietary sustainability data has the opportunity to transform the footprint of entire industries,” said Todd MacLean, Managing Partner at Silversmith Capital Partners. “In this case software is not only eating the world, but changing it for the better. We are excited to partner with Jason and his entire team as they continue to scale and ensure consumers have better insights on environmental and social impact when making purchasing decisions.”

“While we urgently need improvements in carbon and clean energy, Higg is accelerating transformation across the board,” added Tom Steyer, Co-Chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions. “Reimagining sustainability within consumer goods is an interconnected challenge, and Higg’s technology addresses this throughout the supply chain.”

Higg was launched in 2019 as a public-benefit technology company to build software for the Higg Index tools (developed and owned by the Sustainable Apparel Coalition). This standardized measurement framework for environmental and social performance has become the most widely used within the apparel and footwear industry. Designed for easy exchange of data between brands and their manufacturing partners, Higg has seen rapid adoption across the sector and driven steady improvement in performance scores—providing a model for other consumer goods categories for industry-wide transformation.

Recently, Higg has begun to host additional assessments, partnering with the Apparel Impact Institute (Aii) to offer a new carbon management program for manufacturing facilities. Higg has also expanded the capabilities of its platform to include advanced analytics, supplier performance dashboards, and product-level impact disclosures, and now enables integration of its data into external product lifecycle management systems. 

“Higg is uniquely driving reduced carbon emissions in the world’s largest emitting markets, including China and India, as well as global improvements in labor conditions,” stated Jeffrey Tannenbaum, Chairman of Titan Grove. “The new capital and strategic partnerships with Galvanize and Silversmith empower our exceptional executive team to enter new industries and to dramatically accelerate our urgent work toward global carbon reduction.”

“When we began supporting Higg in 2018, we knew the marketplace for ESG data would expand rapidly,” added Henrik Jones from Buckhill Capital. “Given the impact we’ve seen in apparel and footwear, our dream is to make Higg as universal and ubiquitous as the bar code—something which lies at the heart of every consumer goods business and drives more informed choices for companies and shoppers alike.”

About Higg

Higg is the sustainability insights platform for consumer goods businesses – delivering software and services for measuring, managing, and sharing supply chain performance data. 

From materials to products, from facilities to stores, from emissions to working conditions, Higg unlocks a complete view of a business’s social and environmental impact. 

Launched in 2019 as a public-benefit corporation, Higg is trusted by global brands, retailers, and manufacturers to provide the single source of ESG intelligence they need to accelerate business and industry transformation. www.higg.com 

About Silversmith Capital Partners

Founded in 2015, Silversmith Capital Partners is a Boston-based growth equity firm with $2.0 billion of capital under management. Silversmith’s mission is to partner with and support the best entrepreneurs in growing, profitable technology and healthcare companies. Representative investments include ActiveCampaign, DistroKid, impact.com, Iodine Software, LifeStance Health, and Webflow. The partners have served on the boards of numerous successful growth companies including ABILITY Network, Dealer.com, Liberty Dialysis, Passport Health, SurveyMonkey, and Wrike. For more information about Silversmith, please visit www.silversmith.com or follow the firm on LinkedIn.

About Galvanize Climate Solutions

Galvanize Climate Solutions, launched in September 2021 by Tom Steyer and Katie Hall, is a mission-driven investment platform that will provide capital, expertise and partnerships necessary to produce and scale vital and urgent climate solutions. Galvanize is purpose-built to accelerate decarbonization efforts by integrating climate-focused investment with global activism. 

Galvanize aims to combine investment, technical, policy and communications expertise under one roof. Despite the progress that has already been made surrounding the climate crisis, there is still a significant gap between where we are headed and what the natural world needs to secure a livable future. Galvanize will help to close that gap by driving innovation, leadership and significant private sector investment in climate-focused companies and innovations. galvanizeclimatesolutions.com

About Titan Grove Holdings

Titan Grove is a private holding company that helps build profitable, impact-driven businesses that transform industries and promote sustainable, healthy and just capitalism. Titan Grove achieves this mission by working with exceptional entrepreneurs, innovators and institutions. sPower, which Titan Grove co-founded and helped build into the largest solar utility in the U.S., is indicative of Titan Grove’s strategy.  www.titangrove.com

About Buckhill Capital

Buckhill Capital invests in companies on a mission to create climate resiliency, educate for employability and build healthy communities. Founded by Henrik Jones in 1999, Buckhill is based in San Francisco with investments including SpaceX, GoodR, Para, Pallet, Graduation Alliance, and Imperfect Foods.  www.buckhillcapital.com   

Media Contact:
media@higg.com

Read the original announcement at PR Newswire here

“We invested in SpaceX in 2017 with the dream that Starlink could provide internet access to people who don’t have it, and the dream is coming through with Starlink providing internet to Ukraine under siege,” said Henrik Jones of Buckhill Capital.

Elon Musk said SpaceX had made access to its satellite-internet system, called Starlink, available in Ukraine and would be sending additional equipment so people could use the service amid the country’s invasion by Russia.

Mr. Musk, the founder of Space Exploration Technologies Corp., as SpaceX is formally known, responded in a tweet to a request from Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, who asked for access to the service via Twitter on Saturday.

“Starlink service is now active in Ukraine. More terminals en route,” Mr. Musk responded on Twitter hours later.

SpaceX has been building out Starlink, a satellite-enabled, high-speed internet service, over the past few years. To use the service, customers need a terminal on the ground that can connect with the Starlink satellites.

Read WSJ article