Meet Paul Miller, Co-founder of Bethnal Green Ventures

Paul Miller is co-founder of x+why member BGV and leads the company’s team and growth. BGV is a diverse and talented team brought together by a shared ambition to help tech for good ventures to become successful in changing the world for better. Previously Paul was the co-founder and CEO of an education technology startup and worked as a senior researcher for think tanks Demos and Forum for the Future. Paul has advised leading companies and the UK government on tech for good.

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What is your role with BGV and how did you get into the industry?

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I helped start BGV and now I’m CEO. BGV grew out of a series of events called social innovation camps where we brought people together who were good at tech, design or business and people who had a good understanding of social and environmental problems.

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These groups would get together for a weekend and hack together a prototype business that could solve some of these challenges. People loved it. At the end of the weekend we always got the question, ‘how do I quit my job and turn this into a start-up?’ So we created BGV in 2012 to provide the investment and connections necessary to enable them to go from a prototype through to a fully functioning and growing start-up.

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Tell us a little more about yourself and your background

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Initially I was an activist working on global justice and environmental issues. Then I spent five years working in public policy for think tanks like Demos and Forum for The Future.  I was writing research reports around how you could use tech to make the world a better place, and I suppose I realised I wanted to start doing things rather than writing about them. So I left and ran an education tech company for about five years after that, which taught me a lot about how to start a tech for good business.

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What were the steps involved in getting BGV up and running?

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Because we already had a community of founders from the Social Innovation Camps, money was the next thing. Our first funder was Nesta (the UK’s innovation foundation) who put capital up to invest in our first cohort of companies. In 2012 we invested in 6 companies, 3 of which have gone on to be really successful businesses. This enabled us to raise more money from people like Big Society Capital and the Social Tech Trust.

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We now also have individual high net worth investors, who invest via our SEIS and EIS funds.

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How did BGV source their initial network, was it from your previous roles?

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Yes, some came from my time as a founder of a tech for good business. It has also come from the growth of impact investing generally. In 2012 there were only a few investors interested in tech for good, whereas now the sector has grown considerably and we’ve ridden that wave.

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What do you think are the causes and catalysts behind this growth?

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I think there’s been a generational shift – wealth has transferred down a generation and slightly younger people care more about where their money goes in terms of its social and environmental purpose.

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I also think the problems we are trying to solve are now more obvious – things like inequality and climate change; people understand it more, along with the wider and longer term implications of their investments.

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The other thing is institutions like the big banks didn’t enjoy being perceived as evil particularly during 2008 and the damage that caused to their reputation. Impact investing is something they can do to show their sector can and does have a positive impact on the world.

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You often hear founders talk about VCs as akin to ‘making a deal with the devil’, how is BGV different from your typical VC firm?

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We like it when all the parties are aligned, and for us it’s not just about a financial return, there has to be a social and environmental return and we work with founders who see that too. Rather than just growing a business for the sake of it, it’s about using capital and peoples’ skills to have a positive impact on the world.

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We have a 3 month programme that successful applicants become a part of, with follow on investment after that. We also offer lifelong support beyond this. Our USP is purpose – we only back mission-lead startups, and we were the first firm in Europe to make this our focus.

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I think we are still the best known, most successful and prolific investor in the tech for good space, in part due to the community we have built over the years, consisting of founders and investors who really care about this stuff. This creates a really supportive community for people that want to become founders.

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What are some exciting start-ups that you have grown recently?

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We’ve now backed over 130 companies so there are lots to choose from. A few examples off the top of my head would be ‘Second Nature’, who are helping people to avoid getting type 2 diabetes. It’s a lifestyle and behaviour change programme that’s proving successful.

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We also have ‘Lettus Grow’, which is tech for indoor farming, reducing the water and energy inputs needed to grow food. And there’s ‘Fairphone’, who have created the world’s most ethical and sustainable smart phone handset.

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Where do most of your applicants find you?

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About a third come from online channels, hearing about us via social media for example, a third are via referrals from portfolio companies and BGV mentors, and about a third come from other investors, or universities and institutions.

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What do you look for in successful applicants?

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They have to be solving a big social or environmental problem, one that potentially affects millions of people. They also need to have a business model whereby the more of their product or service they sell, the more positive impact they have on the world.

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They also have to be within the tech sector. Tech helps you to scale quickly and we are talking about tackling urgent problems. Technology is an enabler of scale at speed.

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What have been some of your career highlights?

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When we started in 2012, we had so many great applications that validated that there were brilliant tech for good founders out there who wanted this kind of support.

It’s been great to see more mainstream investors invest in our companies, as increasing numbers of people and companies wake up to impact, purpose and mission.

It’s also incredibly rewarding to invest in tiny companies that then grow into businesses that employ hundreds of employees and serve millions of people.

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What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned?

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Failure is not something to be scared of. Acknowledging that these things don’t always work out, and not always for reasons in or out of our control.

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Starting a business is a very emotional and all-encompassing thing, but sometimes it not working out is the right thing, so it can’t be taken too personally. Life goes on, you do get another go, and there’s a lot of learning to be done along the way.

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How has what you do changed you as a person?

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I’ve become a lot more patient, in terms of knowing that there’s no such thing as an overnight success, it’s lots of work over lots of years, so sometimes there’s bad news along the way, and you just have to wait and see what’s going to happen rather than jumping to conclusions.

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Where did your involvement in activism stem from?

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My mum – she was always involved in it as I was growing up, whether it was environmental or social, it rubbed off. I always had a strong interest in means of changing the world for the better, especially as a student.

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There’s obviously still a role for activism but now it’s more about investment and business for me, as this is where my strengths have come to lie. I realised that I can have a similar kind of impact, via different tools.  

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What’s your vision for the future?

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To grow BGV to be a brilliant source of capital and support for the most ambitious tech for good founders. We want to increase the amount of investment capital we have available to back these kinds of businesses and people.

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When working on your passion it can be difficult to put on the breaks and easy to burn out. How do you prevent this, and manage anxiety and stress?

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It’s about having some balance in your life, in terms of health, mind and work – mine comes from being surrounded by incredibly supportive people, who I enjoy working with. Having a strong social network around me has been a protective factor.

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Any books or blogs on your recommended reading list?

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I read Bad Blood, which documented the case of Theranos defrauding investors under the pretence that they could completely revolutionise healthcare. It’s a good story of how not to do this stuff, and seeing, learning and understanding what can go wrong in this world.

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What do you love most about x+why?

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It’s been great to be amongst likeminded organisations, to be surrounded by entrepreneurs but also other investors or people like B Lab within the social impact space, that’s been really really good. We have been in spaces before where we have not felt the same quality of community, and you really notice the difference when you are in proximity to others all working towards the same end goal.    

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