Nordic societies are increasingly faced with complex problems that are difficult to solve within our existing systems. Over the last decade it has become more and more obvious that many innovative and efficient solutions to our societal problems are invented by entrepreneurs, scaled with the help of investors and implemented by brave public sectors and forward-leaning corporations.
However, social impact entrepreneurs don’t scale at the same rate or pace as other entrepreneurs despite their ability to change the world. At the same time, investors are increasingly more interested in companies who deliver on double or triple bottom lines, but lack the competence and experience need to effectively and durably enter into this new investment space.
On top of that, public sector organisations have limited experience in procuring and supporting actual impact innovations and using outcomes-based financing and procurement models.
The project partners behind Impact StartUp Nordic wants to do something about this. They are all currently running a joint impact accelerator program for impact entrepreneurs in their own home countries and now they wish to use their experience and learnings to develop a fuctioning ecosystem of companies, investors and relevant public authorities to accelerate the growth of the Nordic impact economy.
During the project period, Impact StartUp Nordic will build:
- a Nordic Investor Lab to educate investors and facilitate investment processes
- a Nordic Public Procurement Lab to educate the public sector and facilitate their procurement processes
- a Nordic impact management and measurement system with standards and guidelines
The ambition is to create substantial value for impact entrepreneurs, investors and public sector organisations alike, as well as for society and individuals. The partners want to contribute to showing how investment in impact entrepreneurs can generate a relevant risk adjusted return alongside measurable impact for investors and how impact entrepreneurs can generate measurable solutions for the public sector that leads to reduced suffering, increased quality of life and reduce cost in the public systems.