Fairphone, the social startup that aims to build a fair modular smartphone has raised 6.5 million euro in a round led by social investor Pymwymic and Dutch social foundation Stichting DOEN. The startup previously raised 9 million euro in a crowdfunding campaign.
Pymwymic, a Dutch investment company, stands for ‘Put Your Money Where Your Meaning Is Community.’ I has since its founding, 23 years ago, invested over 50 million in companies tackling global challenges.
Sustainable and fair value chain
Fairphone will use the capital raised to expand its distribution network, ’meet the growing demand’ for fairer electronics and formalize its operations. The startup’s ultimate goal is to make the whole value chain more sustainable and fair. It’s aims to to achieve this by practicing what it preaches. Demonstrating that it is possible to produce fair and sustainable smartphones. Fairphone states that the new funding enables it to source fair materials, innovate on long-lasting design, negotiate better working conditions and build new business models for reuse and recycling. “By bringing these principles to the table, we can inspire an entire system change,” says founder and CEO Bas van Abel.
As a part of elevating the company to a larger social enterprise the company has recruited Eva Gouwens, the former ‘first-lady’ of the fair chocolate brand Tony’s Chocolonely, as it’s new managing director. Gowens will work closely with Van Abel.
“We seek companies that can be disruptive to the sector they operate in. For Fairphone, driving this impact is truly in their DNA. Their efforts create radical transparency in the industry“, says Rogier Pieterse, Managing Partner of Pymwymic, in the press release about the investment.
In 2015 Fairphone became Europe’s fastest-growing startup.
Photo: Fairphone