Students were challenged to advise on funding socially driven startups during a Juncture-sponsored case competition.
The student-run Case Competition Club hosted a case this year on social impact investing, sponsored by Juncture: Dialogues on Inclusive Capitalism. Juncture offered a prize pool of $2500 for the winning team.
Impact investing is an emerging way to use funds for generating positive social or environmental impact as well as financial return.
Students were given a case study based around Soul Capital’s new investment fund Te Pae ki te Rangi. This fund backs ventures driven by three core themes: increased equity, social inclusion and regenerative environments. The students then competed in teams to provide the best advice on venture plans, and to make sound recommendations on investment allocation, based on both impact and financial returns.
Lucia West, Josiah Teh, Sebastian Kirman-Martin and Matthew Lay were on the winning team. They described taking part in the case competition as fun and a good learning experience.
“Learning about social impact investing was eye opening for me because we learned how you balance financial return on investment with a sort of ESG-oriented metrics for success – I think that was an interesting angle I appreciated from this competition,” said Josiah.
The case focused on three New Zealand startups and the students presented their analysis of each venture to a panel of judges. The winning team recommended tranche-based funding for two of the companies, and provided strategies to help the startups scale, grow, and maximise their impact while remaining commercially viable and economically sustainable.
According to Lucia, “Part of our analysis was working out at what stage each company was at, and as business consultants in this role where we could provide the most expertise of what our actual role was. We don’t have a lot of experience with the venture capital and startup aspect of things, but we can advise on go to market strategy and what market is suited to their products. “
Matthew appreciated the opportunity to learn more about venture capital and funding strategies and finding a VC firm that cares about social impact investing.
“A lot of the VC firms that I know, all they care about are high growth tech stocks- the ones that make the most money. So, it’s really refreshing to see that there are also companies that invest in impact as well.”
The three students interviewed for this story were asked how capitalism could be made more inclusive. Here’s what they said:
Matthew:
“In an ideal society, innovation, capital funds, and investments should go towards helping people and helping our planet. Obviously, this is not always the case. A lot of firms out there are in it for just the money. I completely understand that economic sustainability is necessary, but it would be cool to have more investment and innovation that is directly trying to help people.”
Lucia:
“I think it’s easy for us as Uni students to be idealistic and say, they’ll do it because it’s the right thing, but that’s not necessarily always the case. So, I’d just say – companies putting the planet first regardless of the – I understand things need to be economically sustainable for a business as well – but there has to be a balance between the two.”
Josiah:
“I think environmental sustainability can be something that’s pursued in conjunction with economic sustainability. And so I think that the biggest change I would like to see is probably that more and more people recognise that, especially in these big companies.”
Juncture Case Competition 2025 winning team:
Sebastian Kirman-Martin, third year LLB/BCom (Law, Economics, Finance)
Matthew Lay, third year BCom/BSc (Finance, Business Analytics, Psychology)
Josiah Teh, second year LLB/B (Com Law, Accounting, Finance)
Lucia West, third year LLB/BA (Law, Politics and International Relations)
Photo from left to right: Matthew Lay, Lucia West, Josiah Teh, and Sebastian Kirman-Martin