We are a group of people – our core team, Advisory Board, and Europe Ambassador Board – who are inspired by the person and message of Jesus: love God above all else and your neighbor as yourself.
Because Jesus is risen, we are hopeful about the future, even though we acknowledge that the world today often experiences pain and grief. We believe in people who are created with talents to build and to create and to leave the world better than they found it. In the dignity of every human being. And we believe that we’re meant to do this together.
We are committed to supporting entrepreneurs and funding their companies. Our vision and values make us a natural partner for people who align with Christian principles – even if they do not personally identify as such.
We pursue quadruple returns: financial, sustainable, social, and spiritual. That means we have a holistic approach, searching for meaning and meaningful ways of investing. One company may emphasize one dimension more than another. Sometimes it’s not even the business activity itself, but the personality and mission of the founders that bring depth and meaning.
Living Hope was born from a clear and compelling vision. In humility and curiosity, we want to build a community of hopeful entrepreneurs and investors who are building beautiful companies across Europe. The name Living Hope comes from a Bible passage that is also featured on our website: as followers of Jesus, we aspire to be representatives of hope. Living Hope, indeed. That doesn’t mean or suggest we will be perfect in doing so.
We want to be a voice of encouragement in a society yearning for meaning. Especially among young people in the West, we see a growing crisis of purpose, anxiety, and depression. We believe hopeful companies can be a powerful response to that.
Stewardship as our guiding principle
We are guided by the ancient, yet remarkably relevant concept of stewardship. New research (credits to Anke Teeuw) identifies five recurring dimensions of stewardship:
1. Interconnectedness. Everything is connected, community matters
2. Ownership. What we manage is not fully ours
3. Accountability. Transparency is needed
4. Sufficiency. There is abundance, but limits are also important
5. Purpose. Have a long term view, search for meaning
| Dimension | How we live it out at Living Hope |
| Interconnectedness | We actively build community through events, partnerships, and attentive listening to the world’s needs. |
| Ownership | We look beyond financial gain. We seek holistic, fourfold returns – caring for people, mission, and the different stakeholders. |
| Accountability | We are accountable towards our Advisory Board, Investors and Founders and aim to be transparent in what we do. |
| Sufficiency | Our management bonus is halved to only 10%. We occasionally invest in deeply meaningful companies with more modest financial returns. |
| Purpose | Our Evergreen structure reflects our long-term view. We aim for deep value creation, not short-term wins. Do good, do not harm. |
As our friend Adam Walach, put it: “It takes a year to grow a cucumber, but a hundred years to grow a cedar tree.”
We ask that our investors resonate with, or at least feel at home in, this vision. You don’t have to be a Christian. What matters is an open and respectful posture toward these values. Every investor receives this manifesto and knows what we stand for. We want all to feel at home in our fund. We are not a church and we are coming from many different backgrounds.
At the same time, we may host events where there is space for prayer or worship (singing). If so, we will always communicate this clearly in advance. We also hope to inspire our investors to reflect on how they, in their own companies and spheres of influence, can translate vision and values into action – and contribute to a hopeful future.
We promise to be an engaged, patient investor – committed to quality, honesty, and also the courage to confront difficult decisions when necessary. Startups often operate under intense pressure. This requires mutual trust. We offer coaching and a significant value-add in strategy, operations and future funding and / or exits. We are an entrepreneurial fund with founder DNA.
We are a sector-agnostic fund, with a focus on the big challenges of Europe. We do not invest in sectors that cause systemic harm to people or society, such as pornography, gambling, or tobacco. We value life and creation in all its aspects, from start to end. Defense is a category in which – given current geopolitical realities – we are willing to invest, provided this can be done ethically and with integrity.
