There's a new social investment fund out there, and it's designed to help more women, minorities, and people with disabilities.
Big Issue Invest, Unpi Invest, and Shift have teamed up to create the Growth Impact Fund, which will offer up to £1.5 million to early-stage social businesses focused on social issues, the Guardian reports.
The fund, which will be funded solely by professional investors, will ringfence its money around "patient, flexible capital, or alternative options, including 70% of funding invested through equity and quasi-equity products," according to a press release.
It will also provide "support for caring responsibilities, accessibility support, consultancy, or professional development" for the social businesses it invests in.
One key eligibility criterion is that more than 75% of the board and 50% of the management team of each social enterprise should identify as at least one of the inclusion groups: women, disabled people; Black, Asian, minoritised, ethnicity, Gypsy, or Traveller; LGBTQIA+; have direct lived experience of the social issues the social business is focused on; and have experienced socio-economic disadvantage.
"We know a pool of talented and diverse investees exist who aren't being served by current products," says Danyal Sattar, Chief Executive at Big Issue Invest. Read the Entire Article
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Ganesh Natarajan is the Founder and Chairman of 5FWorld, a new platform for funding and developing start-ups, social enterprises and the skills eco-system in India. In the past two decades, he has built two of India’s high-growth software services companies – Aptech and Zensar – almost from scratch to global success.