Blog series: The impact of AI on Impact Investing – Part 4/10
In my earlier posts I wrote about AI as a force for equal opportunity, the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome, and why investors need to shift from can it scale to should it scale.
That question naturally leads to the next challenge: how do we measure “should”?
📊 Venture capital already has a strong toolkit: ARR, growth, churn, unit economics. These remain essential, without fundamentals, no business will last.
⚖️ But in the age of AI that toolkit is incomplete. If almost anything can be built, we also need to ask whether it deserves to scale.
That means pairing financial KPIs with impact KPIs. Asking questions such as:
- Does this product broaden access, or reinforce privilege?
- Is it affordable at scale, or only for a few?
- Does it create inclusion and trust, or concentrate power further?
At Shaping Impact Group we believe the future is not about choosing between commercial and impact metrics, but about combining them. Financial KPIs tell us if a business can grow. Impact KPIs tell us whether it should.
In my next post, I will explore how AI itself can support us as investors in this measurement: from real-time impact tracking to bias detection and portfolio-level insights.
I’d love to hear your view: if you could add just one impact KPI next to revenue for an AI startup, what would it be? Share your thoughts here on LinkedIn!
