About Us
Experiences shape where we see possibilities. For us, merging a background of absolute poverty in Angola, with the knowledge of how businesses can have a positive impact on the world around them, the idea of supporting companies that bring positive social change was born.
Growth makes societies prosper, and that growth must come from thriving companies. That’s where our work begins. The companies we invest in should have a track record of generating social impact, either through their products or services, or the jobs they create. We invest in companies with proven and scalable business models, and teams committed to long-term success. Businesses that can grow to impact and change people’s lives for the better.
We are focused on countries in southern Africa and in Guldhjulet’s country of origin, Sweden.
Teresa's Story
Raised by her mother alongside nine older siblings, Teresa Afonso Leimdörfer grew up in Angola under modest circumstances. Her childhood home — a small clay hut with a packed dirt floor — is a memory she carries with her and often reflects on, sharing photos from visits to her village as an adult.
Life in Angola was shaped by the realities of civil war. With food shortages and a constant undercurrent of fear, these early experiences instilled in Teresa a deep understanding of resilience and the value of strong communities.
When she moved to Sweden as a young adult, Teresa brought with her the lessons of her upbringing and a determination to create opportunity. She is an entrepreneur in her own right, leading a driving school in Sweden as CEO and owner. Even though she is no longer the owner, she knows what it takes to build a thriving business while staying grounded in the community.
The ideas behind Guldhjulet are personal to Teresa. Co-founding the organisation with her husband, Peter Leimdörfer, she has drawn on her own life experiences to shape its mission. Creating positive social change is not an abstract ideal — it’s the foundation of her story and the guiding principle behind all that Guldhjulet strives to achieve.
How we became social investors
Giving back to the community
In 2016, we, Teresa and Peter, decided that we wanted to give back to the community by supporting organisations trying to solve issues in society. Our initial focus was to counteract violence, discrimination, and different kinds of oppression.
With Teresa having immigrated from Angola to Sweden herself, supporting ways for integrating people into the fabric of Swedish culture also came naturally. We started a yearly “awards ceremony” giving out cash prizes to organisations in need of financial support. We also did some charitable work in Angola.
This was a reasonable first step, but after a number of years, we started to see some long-term limitations for us to help out in this way. Many organisations achieved remarkable results with limited resources but sometimes became too reliant on the work and engagement of one single person. We wanted to see if we could do more.
Taking our support beyond aid
In our view, the importance of aid cannot be overstated — it is a crucial tool in combating crises and catastrophes, mitigating diseases, and supporting those affected by violence and war. The current trend of countries reducing aid to prioritise local issues will have tragic consequences.
The importance of well-functioning aid does not take away another growing insight: aid has limits in creating growth and making societies and countries more self-sustainable. To make that change happen we need functioning companies and more business opportunities, a growing economy that can support more people in a better way.
This is where social investments can make a difference, current research shows that the social benefits multiply many times for each dollar invested.
That is why we started to think about other ways to help. Instead of only doing what was more or less financial aid, we also wanted to provide steppingstones to build self-sustaining organisations that can grow far beyond our limited means of support and create value for more people than our engagement would ever amount to.
We believe that these organisations need to be business-driven companies. Meaning that even though we are social investors looking to drive a positive change, we are investing on the merits of the company and market. We seek to invest under regular market conditions, ensuring a reasonable profit that allows us to reinvest in new projects.
In short, we are an investment vehicle, intent on creating a flywheel where we hope to achieve a bigger impact with each passing year.
