A bottle of REBBL and a diesel truck seem unlikely to belong in the same investment conversation. One sits in a refrigerator. The other hauls freight. Yet both appear in the portfolio of Just Business, the investment and venture-development firm co-founded by David Batstone and Mark Wexler. The connection is a question: can the ordinary machinery of commerce be arranged so that making money also reduces exploitation or environmental damage? The interesting part is where the arrangement gets specific.
- Invests capital and works alongside founders on strategy, operations and growth.
- Connects ventures through shared social aims, networks and, in its stated model, mutually beneficial shareholdings.
- Its record includes REBBL, a child-safety software venture and a hydrogen investment whose funding fell short of its announcement.
The restaurant that changed the question
Batstone has described learning that a favorite San Francisco restaurant had been connected to human trafficking. In a later podcast interview, he recalled taking leave from his university and investment work to spend a year following the money behind exploitation. It changed the scale of the question he was asking. Helping someone escape mattered. So did understanding the economic arrangements that put people at risk in the first place.
Just Business dates its creation to 2006 and describes cultivating Not For Sale as an early undertaking. The nonprofit fights human trafficking and labor exploitation. The investment business developed around an adjacent idea: build enterprises that give people better economic choices. In a 2022 interview with the Graduate Theological Union, Batstone described gradually bringing together work that had once felt separate: investing, teaching and human rights. That combination explains the unusual portfolio better than any single industry label.
“I’m building businesses. I’m just not building destructive businesses.”
David Batstone, University of San Francisco interview, 2017
The bottle has two jobs
REBBL makes the idea tangible. Just Business helped build the plant-based beverage company, which connects its commercial activity to Not For Sale. REBBL’s current account of its mission emphasizes ethical ingredient sourcing, fair wages and donating a percentage of net sales to the nonprofit. The bottle has a customer-facing job: taste good enough to sell again. Its sourcing and sales also support a social purpose.
There are different ways to construct that connection. Dignita, the Dutch restaurant enterprise displayed in Just Business’s portfolio, says its profits support Not For Sale’s work, including hospitality training and coaching for vulnerable people. Buying brunch and financing vocational opportunity become parts of the same operation. These arrangements matter because “impact” can otherwise mean almost anything. Here, the mechanism is visible: purchasing, employment, training or a share of sales.
REBBL was acquired by SYSTM Foods in 2022. That matters when reading the portfolio: appearing on an investor’s website does not establish present ownership or disclose an investment return. In his review of 2023, Batstone reported that REBBL had contributed more than $2 million to Not For Sale. That is a concrete account of support for the nonprofit, rather than a measure of what Just Business’s investors earned.
More than a cheque
For a founder, Just Business’s offer combines financing with company building. Its published approach emphasizes coaching, acceleration and collaboration across ventures. Wexler’s biography describes managerial and structural oversight of portfolio businesses. Batstone brings experience in technology investment and social entrepreneurship. The intended customer is a founder building a commercially viable company with a social or environmental mission; the firm also invites investors whose interests match that approach.
One revealing example arrived in December 2020, when Just Business and London’s Vigil AI announced Krunam, a public benefit corporation developing software to detect online child sexual exploitation material. The division of labor was explicit. Vigil brought technical expertise; Just Business would help secure corporate clients and law-enforcement contracts. Batstone joined the board, while Mark Wexler was named president and a director. Commercial development was part of the investment proposition.
The same practical instinct extends to communication. A March 2021 announcement described designer Maria Perez joining projects involving energy-company branding, websites and communication strategy. That is useful detail for an entrepreneur assessing fit. The firm presents itself as an involved partner, with work reaching into how a venture is organized and how it explains its product. A founder seeking only a cheque would be evaluating a different relationship.
The hydrogen promise met the cash constraint
Hydra Energy offered another version of the commercial argument. Its 2021 proposal paired hydrogen-diesel truck conversions with fuel supply, allowing fleet operators to keep existing vehicles. Reuters reported a planned hydrogen price five percent below their diesel costs. The appeal was adoption without asking a transport operator to retire a working asset simply to demonstrate environmental commitment.
In May 2021, Hydra announced CAD$15 million from Just Business for conversion kits and hydrogen infrastructure. Then came a material correction. An update dated December 1, 2022, on Hydra’s announcement said the commitment had been only partially delivered because of an unforeseen issue with Just Business’s available funds. Hydra stated that the issue was unrelated to its own milestones. The announced amount must therefore be read as a commitment, not a confirmed total received.
That episode exposes a dependency inside the model. Making adoption affordable for customers moves financial demands elsewhere: equipment, fuel infrastructure and development still require capital. The documented funding shortfall concerned available money. More broadly, the lesson for founders is to connect spending plans to funding actually available, with contingencies for delays. A persuasive environmental case cannot settle an invoice.
Copy the connection
- 01Make something usefulGive a customer a reason to pay.
- 02Connect the transactionBuild in sourcing, jobs or support.
- 03Test both outcomesTrack commercial demand and the social result.
Just Business sits where impact investing meets venture building. Compared with an investor focused primarily on selecting companies, its stated distinction is participation: coaching founders and connecting enterprises around shared missions. Its own philosophy describes interlocking networks and shareholdings. That is a proposed source of advantage, rather than proof that every company benefits equally.
The useful thing to copy is the design exercise. Identify who pays, what they receive and exactly how a sale improves someone else’s position. Then test whether the customer would return. A training restaurant needs diners; a beverage needs repeat buyers; cleaner trucking needs workable economics and reliable fuel. Those conditions make the social ambition answerable to operating reality. Just Business offers a set of experiments in bringing the two together, with the funding complication included in the record.