Human and planetary health

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Built by innovation capital

Human and planetary health are inseparable. Clean air, safe water, fertile soil and a stable climate are core inputs into population health, with environmental degradation translating directly into higher disease burden, poorer nutrition and social instability.

Breakthrough innovation in this area rarely follows a linear path. Setbacks occur, but they are not failures. They generate the insights that drive progress. They enable value creation.

Innovation capital carries solutions from discovery to deployment, funding each stage of that journey. These are the outcomes where innovation capital enabled system-led change.

Food systems that regenerate

European precision farming, bio-stimulants and biopesticides are shifting agriculture away from extractive models toward regenerative systems. Innovation capital enabled adoption at scale, improving productivity while restoring soil health.

Prevention over cure

European advances in microbiome science, digital health and functional nutrition are reframing prevention as health infrastructure. Innovation capital backed the long-duration outcomes that reduce chronic disease burden and system costs.

New industries from the ocean

European seaweed and algae platforms offer fast-growing, low-resource inputs for food, materials and feed. Private investment transformed niche science into scalable bio-industrial capability.

Science that saves lives

European labs produced some of the most significant biomedical breakthroughs of the past decade, from monoclonal antibody development to precision drug discovery. Innovation capital sustained the long research cycles that made it possible.

Value from waste

Europe discards a significant share of its food production each year. New technologies are converting waste into ingredients and bio-compounds, turning structural inefficiency into circular value chains. Innovation capital backed the companies building these models.

Health democratised

Innovation capital backed the platforms, diagnostics and digital tools that extended affordable healthcare access beyond traditional systems. From remote consultations to AI-assisted diagnostics and assistive technologies, healthcare gaps were closed.

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The systemic friction holding us back

Each of these outcomes depended on a progression from discovery to proof-of-concept to deployment. We know that uncertainty is highest at the outset, evidence builds through experimentation, and impact materialises only when solutions reach scale. It is not a weakness of the model. It is the nature of the model.

As investors working across stages, we see regulation arrive before the innovation has unfolded, preventing innovation before it even happens. Consumer and stakeholder protection belongs in the system, but only once technologies reach markets at scale.

Ranking the blockers

Where the discussion started

View the ranking

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Necessary shifts: how GPs see it

Human and planetary health outcomes are system outcomes by nature. They emerge across healthcare systems, food supply chains, energy networks and environmental infrastructure.

At Ugly Duck, our discussion focused on how decisions are made across that system. We see limited partners, regulators, policymakers and GPs each acting through legitimate constraints, but often without visibility of how our decisions interact. Progress stalls not because solutions are missing, but because system impact requires convergence.

Make the pathway legible

When outcomes depend on complex systems, with long time horizons, uncharted pathways to commercialisation and related funding that do not map to conventional benchmarks, we see investors hesitate.

"People do not understand the timelines, the risks, the rewards. They expect distributions before the technology can create commercial market traction."

We can close that knowledge gap: by mapping how innovation moves from discovery to deployment and showing innovation capital as an indispensable asset class that generates returns uncorrelated to traditional markets. In that way, innovation capital can be judged by the opportunity it creates rather than the uncertainty it navigates.

"We need to help educate on what venture capital and impact investing is."

Build the evidence

Health and climate investing is often judged by intention rather than performance. Without comparable benchmarks, credibility is built on narrative. That is not enough.

"We need to convince policymakers and ultimately EU citizens that we are worth that taxpayer money."

The data exists. But it is held unevenly across funds, institutions and public investors. We are willing to go further than we have before, find ways to evidence impact in a consistent way and share more granular outcome data, company by company, fund by fund, stage by stage.

"We need empirical benchmarks and easier access to comparable performance information. All local public investors should publish their data."

Measure what matters

"Having a top-down agenda disconnected from reality is not working."

The reporting frameworks governing innovation capital in human and planetary health were not designed with the market. We propose more bottom-up dialogue, so we measure what matters, based on the market realities. That way we know what we are measuring and why.

"Change regulatory frameworks together to create less impact washing and actually prove the effectiveness of impact investing in all stages."

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Future outcomes if the shifts hold

If the pathway is legible, the evidence is credible and reporting measures what matters - we believe the science we are already funding can deliver at the scale and pace the challenge demands. For people. For the planet.

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