On October 21st, we joined The Gap in Between in Valencia, hosted at wonderful La Marina de Valencia. The event brought together early-stage founders, angel investors, and ecosystem builders who care about building companies that combine financial viability with real-world impact.
Tau20 was introduced during the panel discussion “The Future of Impact: Insights from Leaders in Investment and Innovation”. The conversation focused on how intentionality, data, and technology are shaping how impact is understood and acted on at early stages.
Panel discussion: The Future of Impact
The panel brought together investors and practitioners working closely with early-stage companies:
- Christina Figiel from Better Ventures
- Juan Fuentes from EBAN
- Tomas Novotny, a serial founder
- Johan Morales from Zubi VC
- Venkata Gandikota from InnoFrugal AI for Impact
The discussion was practical and grounded. Speakers shared why impact needs to be designed into the business model early, not added later for reporting. Greenwashing risks, the limits of single KPIs, and the role of proxy metrics such as education, jobs, diversity, and governance came up repeatedly. AI-driven impact assessment was discussed as a way to make impact work for early-stage teams without slowing them down.
“The panel discussion on the challenges of impact ended up perfectly showing why the early-stage ecosystem needs tools like Tau20. Introducing it right after the discussion felt like the best possible timing,”
Jacopo Losso
Director General, EBAN and panel moderator
What is Tau20 and why it exists
Following the panel, Tom Novotny introduced Tau20 and explained why it is being built for the early-stage ecosystem. Tau20 exists to support impact founders and investors by making it easier to speak the same language early on and to align expectations without slowing companies down.
Tau20 is an AI-powered platform designed to make impact assessment more transparent, efficient, and actionable for both startups and investors. It helps founders structure their impact early, and helps angels and VCs get clearer, more comparable impact signals when making decisions.
From conversation to action
To make things concrete, finalists of The Gap in Between received a free impact assessment using the Tau20 AI tool in prototype mode, with an expert in the loop. For many teams, this was the first time they translated impact intentions into something tangible they could discuss with investors.
For us, Valencia was an important step. We tested Tau20 in real conversations with founders, angels, and early-stage VCs, and we learned a lot from the feedback shared by the community we are building this for.