Reimagining the business of business

IF you don’t like how the table is set, flip the table. And that’s what 50 female investors and founders gathered to do for a three-day event in Adelaide at the end of February, all aiming to fundamentally reimagine how we do business.

The event was organised by Toronto-based Coralus, a global network and $15 million investment fund for women, by women.

Formerly called SheEO, Coralus has supported more than 170 women-led ventures since it was founded eight years ago by social innovator Vicki Saunders. It has since expanded to New Zealand, the US, the UK and Australia, with our local fund sitting at about $1 million.

Radical generosity

Coralus isn’t just a fund for ventures led by women; it’s about changing the world to make it work better for everyone.

One of the ways the Coralus community is doing this is through radical generosity. Each investor (activator) puts $1,100 each year into a perpetual fund and, along with other activators, gets to vote on which women-led ventures get funded.

As a perpetual fund, it grows each year as the loans are paid back by the ventures.

But radical generosity goes much deeper than the financial aspect. The network of investors and founders act as a sort of reimagined old girls’ club, making introductions, providing advice and mentoring each other.

“Coralus Australia has always been a highly collaborative community,” Ms Saunders told Business News.

“Whenever a venture in our community posts a need [to one of the social platforms] others respond almost immediately.

“The way the community celebrates and supports one another is inspiring. Australia is a stellar example of collaboration, and the world needs more of that radical generosity.”

New model

The ventures funded by Coralus are not only female and non-binary led (as well as often under-represented groups such as First Nations peoples); they also aim to make a positive contribution to society through education, sustainability or wellness.

Ms Saunders describes it as a subscription model for a new world.

“We are at a time in the world where most of us are clear we have an economic and social model that is not working,” she said.

“Right now, five people have the same wealth as half the planet and a majority of every new dollar of GDP growth is going to the .01 per cent.

“This extractive model creates more social and economic inequality by the day and has us think there isn’t enough for everyone. We need to reinvent almost every model we have out there, including how we do an economy.”

Need

This was especially true in the tech industry, Ms Saunders said.

“We have extremely biased systems and structures set up that are creating the results they were set up to create,” she said.

“It’s tech, it’s finance, it’s Fortune 500s, it’s governments, it’s everywhere. We have systems that still don’t offer flex work that is needed because other systems – education, for example – are not set up to align with work hours.

“We need to redesign our systems to work for humans, not the other way around.”

This is perhaps why there are so many Coralus ventures, including here in Australia, with a tech flavour to them.

“Our Australian ventures are experimenting with many new ways of organising work, of engaging with the metaverse (Indigital), of rethinking cities (Neighborlytics), of reusing materials (Circonomy),” Ms Saunders said.

“It’s the time of reimagining and redesigning it all. And it’s an exciting time to be alive.”

[Disclosure: The writer is a Coralus activator/investor, and was at the Adelaide gathering, but receives no monetary gain]

• Dr Kate Raynes-Goldie is a cultural anthropologist, keynote speaker, certified facilitator and the creator of SUPERCONNECT®, a methodology built on LEGO Serious Play those boosts human connection, engagement and wellbeing and has been used by organisations including RSM, RAC, the Department of Finance, RUAH Community Services and Murdoch University