In this episode of Impact Talks, we speak with Alina Klarner, General Partner at Impact Shakers Ventures, about how she and co-founder Yonca Braeckman are reshaping early-stage investing through a bold, inclusive model. With a €20M fund focused on climate tech, inclusion tech, and impact infrastructure, Alina shares how they’re bridging capital gaps for diverse founders, embedding impact into every layer of the business, and building a blueprint for a more equitable venture ecosystem.
Before launching Impact Shakers Ventures, Alina spent over a decade in private equity and advisory services—where she saw firsthand the industry’s lack of diversity and meaningful ESG integration. That experience sparked her angel investing journey, focused on female and underrepresented founders building startups in areas like food upcycling, flight-free travel, and climate resilience.
But angel capital alone wasn’t enough. Together with Yonca, who had already built a Europe-wide ecosystem of 500+ impact stakeholders, they decided to take on the capital gap head-on. First came a friends and family microfund structured as a cooperative, where anyone could invest from as little as €250. That evergreen vehicle now counts 10 diverse portfolio companies and an investor community helping make funding decisions democratically.
The next step? Scaling that model. Their current €20M venture fund is backing pre-seed and seed-stage startups across Europe and the UK in three key verticals: climate tech, inclusion tech, and impact infrastructure—including software, hardware, and hybrid models. The fund has already made nine investments and aims to reach 24 with initial tickets of €250–500K and up to €1.5M in follow-ons.
What sets Impact Shakers apart isn't just their intersectional focus on diversity—gender, ethnicity, migration background, disability, LGBTQ+—but also how they embed impact and founder wellbeing into every investment. Their accelerator-style model helps founders scale while building resilient, mission-aligned organizations. Alina also introduces their proprietary “Impact Readiness Levels” framework—an answer to the well-known Technology Readiness Levels—to help companies grow their impact alongside their business model.
Despite a tough fundraising environment, the fund has attracted support from family offices, high-net-worth individuals, and even the Belgian government—all aligned with the fund’s vision of building a regenerative, inclusive economy.
Looking ahead, Alina envisions building an impact asset manager with a suite of instruments—from venture to long-term capital—to drive systemic change. “We’re here to create the success stories that inspire others to follow,” she says. And with their early momentum, it’s clear Impact Shakers isn’t just investing in diverse startups—they're investing in a new kind of venture capital.
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