For social ventures to operate on a scale that will make a sustainable difference to the UK, they need to be able to access investment capital and advice in an appropriate form and at the right time.
Social venture intermediaries in the UK have been given a £1.4m boost.
The cash injection has been announced by NESTA, the independent social innovation body. It has spread the money among six organisations focused on finance, public services and innovation.
NESTA has been working for several years to support social ventures – which it defines as “organisations with measureable social impact, financially viable business models and capability of scaling their impact” – and has now invested more than £5m in 15 organisations which it believes can "offer radically different, cheaper and better solutions to some of society’s biggest challenges".
NESTA’s recent reports, Growing Social Ventures and Twenty Catalytic Investments, demonstrated the role and range of intermediaries in getting support to these ventures.
However, the organisation points out that the intermediary market is an immature one, and so its investments aim to “build a portfolio of stronger intermediaries better able distribute capital to ventures, attract new capital to the market and to help social ventures to become more ‘investment ready’.”.
Joe Ludlow, NESTA’s Director of Social Ventures, said: “We know that for social ventures to operate on a scale that will make a sustainable difference to the UK, they need to be able to access investment capital and advice in an appropriate form and at the right time.
“Today’s investments extend our already strong commitment to developing the social venture intermediary marketplace to provide this help.”
The six organisations receiving support are:
More information about the 15 organisations receiving investment is available on the NESTA website.
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