Nesta to invest £25m in social enterprise

Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, has opened a new £25m fund and is looking to invest in social organisations. The fund will make investments in innovative social ventures that address and are able to demonstrate a significant impact on core social concerns in the areas of:

• health and wellbeing of the elderly,
• education and employability of young people and children
• social and environmental sustainability of communities

Nesta Impact Investments looks to invest where there is potential and proof for scalable social impact and financial feasibility. Investments will be assessed with the help of the “Standards of Evidence for Impact Investing” a paper published alongside with the project.

Over £17.5m worth of commitments have been made for this first closing round of the 23rd of October, and the target is for the commitments to reach £25m. A current investor in Nesta Impact Investments is Big Society Capital.

To find out more and to make an application click here.

by Ioana Nedelcu