At maze, we work to prove that impact is not only possible but is the greatest economic opportunity of our time. This vision led us to develop a set of tools to support players across the impact ecosystem in scaling their initiatives. Among those players are impact startups—young companies dedicated to solving social and environmental issues through business. We work closely with their founders either through hands on support in dealing with the many challenges faced by early-stage ventures or through providing capital needed to scale.
Many impact startups start with a B2C approach, directly selling their products or services to individual customers. This strategy allows them to gain visibility, build brand awareness, and test the market. However, as they grow they often make the transition to a B2B approach, where they focus on selling to larger, mainstream companies. By making this shift they benefit from securing steadier sources of revenues as these contracts tend to be longer-term and larger in value, unlike individual customers. Despite these advantages, the first hurdle is often access—getting connected to the right commercial partners.
Traditionally, founders rely on networks or ad hoc requests to investors for introductions, but this approach is slow and limited. Without efficient access to B2B networks, impact startups struggle to establish the foundational partnerships that could help them thrive.
Rewind back 18 months to when maze and partners Casa Do Impacto, Saint Brand, Startup Norway, and BLab Europe won EU funding to address this access gap. Together, we launched MATCH, a project aimed at preparing mainstream businesses for meaningful commercial engagement with impact startups while empowering startups to position themselves in the broader market.
At the heart of the project was an online platform serving as a marketplace for B2B interactions. The benefits of MATCH are clear:
To bring the platform to life, we followed a structured approach focused on four main questions: