Achieving this requires expanding the resources available. In particular:
- capital for investing in the further development and scaling of the platform, and
- top talent to execute the vision.
And doing it in the right way, aligned with the purpose.
Sharing Alkemio’s journey to keep purpose first while being able to attract the talent and capital to scale the platform. This was not an easy journey, and we hope this will help many other ventures looking to make positive contributions to society!
Alkemio is in business to empower society to solve challenges effectively. This purpose is central to everything we do. We are building a team of employees, partners and investors that share this purpose. To ensure their continued trust and achieve the long-term vision, we have chosen Steward Ownership as the core of our group structure.
Achieving this requires expanding the resources available. In particular:
And doing it in the right way, aligned with the purpose.
Stichting Alkemio was established in June 2020, as a foundation in the Netherlands. It fulfilled multiple roles: building the platform, growing the community and developing the roadmap for the organization. It became clear that a single entity structure, and in particular a foundation, would not be sufficient to scale the platform and realise the full vision.
The drivers for Alkemio were:
We knew we had found the solution when we heard about Steward Ownership, which we implemented in 2023.
Core features of Steward Ownership, as implemented by Alkemio, include:
The new organizational structure implemented by Alkemio is shown below. All named entites are registered in The Netherlands.
Alkemio Holding is the Steward Ownership entity. It is a commercially and professionally run business to achieve the purpose. The value generated is distributed in accordance with the principles of Steward Ownership and the purpose.
The key entities in this diagram and their roles are:
As the core entity in the organizational design, it is important to clarify the different share classes in Alkemio Holding and their purpose.
Share class | Abbreviation | Purpose | Control | Economic | Held by |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Steward Control | SC | Primary voting control | Y | N | Stichting Alkemio |
Purpose Control | PC | Independent guarantee on the purpose | Y | N | Stichting de Prioriteit |
Contributor Capital | CC | Economic participation for contributors of capital. Capped (*). | N | Y | STAK Participanten Alkemio |
Contributor Time | CT | Economic participation for contributors of time. Capped (*). | N | Y | STAK Participanten Alkemio |
Steward Economic | SE | Economic value to be allocated in line with the purpose. Not capped. | N | Y | Stichting Alkemio |
(*) Economic returns for contributors are capped in that there is a limited economic value that can be received. Shares CC and shares CT are converted to certificates via STAK Participanten Alkemio, to ensure that they can be issued without requiring notarial involvement.
There are multiple implications from the above structure that are worth detailing out:
Finally, the full separation of control and economic interest also results in the core articles of Alkemio Holding become simpler. Much of the “standard” articles of companies have many provisions to deal with the overlap of economic interest and control, by having the economic interest via certificates the articles become significantly simpler.
The adoption of Steward Ownership can be seen as a double lock on the purpose of Alkemio.
This is important for two key reasons:
It is simply a much stronger guarantee than relying on the governance of a Foundation.
The Purpose Control (PC) share is held by Stichting de Prioriteit. This entity, establised also in The Netherlands, has the purpose to act as an independent party to guarantee principles of steward ownership are followed in such ventures.
For all stakeholders of Alkemio this double lock is important: investors / contributors who have an economic interest but no voting rights, partners that wish to support the vision, and customers that want to have confidence in the long term roadmap for the platform.
Alkemio has invested significant time, money and energy into the above structure and approach. It was a difficult process, and we benefitted greatly from other parties that have already followed and champion the Steward Ownership path.
We believe this structure has the potential to benefit many other ventures looking to make positive contributions to society, so we are sharing our documents and please also reach out if you would like to learn more from our journey so far!
Our observation is that it is simply too much work to put purpose before profit. The analogy we have used is that for classic VC startups there is a 10 lane highway with service stations, many parties that are familiar with that journey type and can help, many fellow travellers, and at least in the earlier stages much faster travel. For purpose ventures it is currently a small side path with determined travellers, but one that is thankfully getting much better known. However this is much to be done.
Alkemio would be delighted and honored if other parties would be able to learn from this setup, and potentially leverage it for their ventures.
Special mentions to the following external parties that have helped Alkemio on our journey so far:
The key documents are listed below:
The key document is probably the Alkemio Holding SHA, which together with the Alkemio Holding AoA ensures that that purpose remains central.
Please feel free to reach out if you would like to discuss / learn from our journey so far.
Alkemio is making great progress, in terms of both organization structure and market traction. There is still work to be done however to complete the vision, and we share some known gaps to be focused on and the long-term plan. We would also love to hear from anyone who has experience or advice to share with us as we continue down this less-travelled path!
The status as of August 2023 is that the above group structure is in place, and the shares of Alkemio Holding have been issued with the exception of shares CT. In addition the operations have been transferred from Stichting Alkemio to Alkemio BV.
This is a critical milestone as it allows Alkemio to raise the funding required to scale.
However there is still work to be done:
All of the above points are on the organizational roadmap and will be addressed. It is important to recognise that Alkemio is still relatively early in its journey and there is only a limited amount of capacity available to develop the organization, build the platform and grow the community. Alkemio is well underway and has achieved a lot, but it is not a given that the venture will succeed - and as such the priority has been to get a scalable and long term structure in place. This is driven by the near term priority to be in a position to raise funds to accelerate the journey and secure Alkemio’s future.
In the longer term the expectation is that there will be significant profits generated in excess of what is needed to scale the platform and be shared with investors and staff. This is a result of the capping of economic returns for the holders of certificates for shares CT / CC combined with the potential for Alkemio, as a SaaS platform, to be a highly profitable business as it achieves scale.
These excess profits will be for the benefit of the holder of the SE share (currently Stichting Alkemio), to be allocated in line with the purpose of Stichting Alkemio i.e. “enable society to collaborate effectively on hard challenges, together!”. As the platform matures and generates profits for distribution, it is important that the SE share moves to be held by a different entity - to avoid overlap of economic rights and voting control.
Interesting in learning how you can do well and do good? Please visit our investors page!
The above information is shared in the interest of accelerating the wider move to a purpose based economy. The information provided here is for general informational purposes only and should not be considered as investment or business advice.
Any investment or business decisions made based on this information are at your own risk.