PRESS RELEASE

Societe Generale and Altalurra Ventures invest in impak ratings, a leading impact analysis and rating agency in Europe.

• Societe Generale, via Societe Generale Ventures, and Altalurra Ventures take a stake in impak Ratings’ a Series A €4.5 million funding.

• Societe Generale has also chosen impak Ratings to analyze the environmental and social impacts of its major corporate clients and better support them in their environmental and energy transition.

• This positions impak as a leading impact analysis and rating agency in Europe and is a testimony of the accelerating transformation of the financial sector towards responsible and positive impact finance.

Paris and Montreal, September 29, 2022: Societe Generale – one of Europe’s first financial services groups actively supporting its clients in their environmental and energy transition with responsible and innovative financing solutions – and Altalurra Ventures – a fund investing in technological start-ups with  positive impacts – are investing €4.5 million in impak Ratings’ Series A round, with the ambition of making it Europe’s leading impact analysis and rating agency.

impak, a unique player on the market

Launched in 2019 and based in Montreal and Paris, impak Ratings aims to be the leading European impact analysis and rating agency. The start-up already has twenty clients that benefit from its innovative and unique methodology. The company provides financial institutions with high-quality impact analysis, based on the most consensual and rigorous industry standards, that bring transparency, comparability and data contextualization. By assessing how companies mitigate their negative impacts and how they generate positive ones, all through the lens of the UN’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, impak ratings goes beyond traditional ESG analysis and promotes a double materiality approach that consists in studying not only the ESG risks to a company’s business model, but also the impact of a company on its environment and society. This approach is now recognized as being instrumental in enabling the financial sector to be a catalyst for the transformation of our economies. This explains the company’s collaboration with major players in the market, such as Societe Generale.

In-depth collaborative work

Indeed, it is thanks to this forward-looking stance that the company was able to convince its new partners, whose participation will considerably accelerate the development of the start-up. In addition to its investment, the Societe Generale group, through its Global Banking and Advisory division, chose impak Ratings in December 2021 as its partner to provide impact analysis for all its major corporate clients and integrate the ratings into the bank’s standard business processes.

“We are pleased with the strengthening of this strategic partnership with impak Ratings. Having a good understanding of our clients’ environmental and social issues is essential in supporting them with their sustainability roadmap. By welcoming the start-up into Societe Generale Ventures, Societe Generale is contributing to accelerating the environmental and social transformation of its clients’ activities,” said Pierre Palmieri, Head of Global Banking and Advisory, Societe Generale.

Altalurra is also making a similar choice by signing a co-development agreement with impak Ratings, therefore adopting the best impact reporting practices for institutional investors in Europe and around the world.

Building momentum for sustainable finance

The financial sector is currently undergoing a deep transformation. As key players in the financing of the economy, banks and asset managers are increasingly taking up environmental and societal challenges to become strong enablers in this transition. To support these changes, they need to integrate high-quality data and impact analysis into their decision-making and business processes. The synergies that are emerging today between impak Ratings and its partners are fully in line with this approach, which aims to set coherent targets in the impact measurement process.

“This new collaboration with impak Ratings is an additional step in the credibility of our investment strategy with committed technology companies. It is indeed a pioneering player, able to co-develop and perfect impact assessment for any institutional investor. As such, we believe it is a start-up that has all the assets to quickly become the leading agency in its segment,” comments Lionel Auguste, co-founder of Altalurra Ventures.

“The announcement of our partnership with Societe Generale is significant and confirms impak’s positioning as a leading impact analysis and rating agency in Europe. It shows the acceleration of the financial sector’s transformation towards responsible and positive impact finance. This investment and the resulting partnerships clearly demonstrate the global leadership of these players in terms of sustainable finance,” concludes Paul Allard, co-founder and CEO of impak Ratings.

About impak Ratings

impak Ratings, a fintech using augmented intelligence, offers impact analysis to the finance sector. Its standardized impact assessment methodology incorporates positive impacts and the double materiality approach, based on the standards of the Impact Management Project and the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. In addition, thanks to more than 3,700 enriched data points that feed its 1000-point impak Score™, impact analyses are comparable, reliable and contextualized.

About Société Générale

Societe Generale is one of the leading European financial services groups. Based on a diversified and integrated model, the Group combines financial solidity, dynamic innovation and a strategy of sustainable and responsible growth. Committed to the positive transformation of societies and economies, Societe Generale acts every day with its teams to build together, with its clients, a better and sustainable future by providing responsible and innovative financial solutions.

A major player in the real economy for more than 150 years with a solid foothold in Europe and connected to the rest of the world, Societe Generale employs more than 131,000 people in 66 countries and supports 26 million individual customers, companies and institutional investors on a daily basis. worldwide (figures as of December 31, 2021), by offering a wide range of advice and tailor-made financial solutions based on three complementary business lines:

• Retail banking in France with the Societe Generale, Crédit du Nord and Boursorama brands, which offer full ranges of financial services with an omnichannel system at the forefront of digital innovation;

• international retail banking, insurance and financial services, with networks present in Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, and specialized businesses that are leaders in their markets;

• Global Banking and Investor Solutions, with its recognized expertise, key international positions and integrated solutions.

Societe Generale is included in the main sustainable development indices: DJSI (Europe), FTSE4Good (Global and Europe), Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, Refinitiv Diversity and Inclusion Index, Euronext Vigeo (Europe and Eurozone), STOXX Global ESG Leaders indexes and MSCI Low Carbon Leaders Index (World and Europe).

For more information, you can follow the twitter account @societegenerale or visit the website www.societegenerale.com.

About Altalurra Ventures

Altalurra Ventures (AV) is a diversity-focused venture capital fund that aims to de-risk ESG investing. AV’s mission is to support the emergence of technology startups that demonstrate a measurable positive impact and a sustainable business model. AV is founded on a deep belief that impact investing is the way to generate superior returns if properly executed and monitored. Our unique experience in growth management, strategy and technology gives us an edge in discovering and supporting entrepreneurs. Thanks to a transparent and data-driven framework, AV integrates a 360° impact analysis as part of its decision-making process; and helps investors deploy and execute a winning impact investing strategy by reconciling CSR and profit.