2. Northwest Social Venture Fund
Our mission is to alleviate global suffering through scalable social
entrepreneurship & impact investing
-We are a Series A Venture Capital Fund, part of the White House Grand
Challenges initiative, like Gates Foundation, to tackle ambitious & achievable
goals to address & resolve global problems
-Our work has been featured by Forbes, GeekWire, Wall Street Journal,
Sustainable Business Oregon, KATU, Portland Business Journal. We grew out
of a thinktank for social impact, the Social Venture Society.
-In 2012 we participated in the White House Business Council for American
Economic Competitiveness, and in 2013 the SBA and TechStars' Global
Accelerator Network recognized us as one of the top 16 accelerators in the US.
3. Key Industry Trends
Each month we evaluate 40-80 companies, and connect with
colleagues and partner organizations. Here are some main
trends we are seeing:
-Nonprofits with scalable tech are converting to for-profit
model and raising private capital
-Forprofits with strong impact are rebranding as impact
companies and raising impact capital
-LPs, philanthropists & angels have a strong desire to do
impact deals, but there is a lot of fear & "wait & see" to
overcome
4.
5. Leap of Faith vs Jump off Ledge
• Every time you do a business deal, you have to take a leap of faith:
• What is the likelihood of success? Is it substantially more than the likelihood
of failure?
• How do the #'s stack up? Is there bad data, no data, or good trending data?
• Do I trust the key players? Are there any serious red flags? Have I taken the
time to do enough due diligence?
• Can I afford to lose if things go south, and am I ready and excited to win, if
things go well?
• Risk begets reward - no risk, no reward. You have to have a personal vision
for the reward outcomes, financially + impact, to take next steps as an
impact capitalist.
6. Industry Data
• Stanford Social Innovation Review: Case Foundation Research
• 2014 Year of Impact Predictions: Capital will 2-3x by 2017
• State of CA, OR, MA Treasurers, Calverts Foundation, Capricorn,
Meyer Memorial Trust, Seattle Impact Investing Group, Mercy Corps
• YCombinator, TenX, PIE accepts nonprofit teams
• Accelerators & Competitions focused on Impact: Fledge, Social
Venture Partner's Fast Pitch - Seattle, Los Angelos, Portland
• HIP, GIIRS, B Labs, Nonprofit Finance Fund providing metrics
frameworks to measure, track, report on impact
• B Labs: New Seasons grocery bag has B Corp label, law firm Immix
is a B Corp, benefit corp legislation in Oregon started 2014 with 29+
new benefit companies in Portland
• Hub Network: Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boulder
9. eNABLE: Business Case
-640 Volunteer Engineers + 50 new/week
-Can provide better functionality and drop price
point from $20K-$40K to $50 COGs + donated
labor + give product away
-Capturing innovation wave of commercially available
3D printing marketspace
Nonprofit model: have to raise $1.75MM from donors
in order to distribute 1,000 and employ 6 people
Forprofit model: Can distribute 10,000 and employ 10
people by generating $1MM in revenues
16. Landscape of Impact Funds
Ecotrust - Natural resource, asset-based impact fund
Rogue Ventures - VC, Oregon based
Revenue Capital Management - rev-based financing, not impact-oriented
Reference Capital - NW-based, environmental
Oregon Angel Fund - smaller amounts ($250K-$750K), not impact targeted. Portland
Seed Fund - seed capital ($18K-$25K), not impact targeted
Equilibrium Capital - OR based, asset-based impact fund focused on clean tech/
sustainability
Women's Venture Fund - OR/CA based, focus on funding women-led startups
University Impact Fund - in another market (SLC)
Unitus Impact - Base of pyramid livelihood development overseas (India, Indonesia)
Grameen Ventures - Overseas, BOP focus (SEA/DC based)
Moksa Ventures - not social, game based; in another market (Denver/Boulder/SLC)
Mercy Corps Seed Fund - in another market (overseas - Egypt)
Mercy Corps Social Venture Fund - grant-based R&D funding for internal ventures
17. Gaps in Impact Landscape:
(Our To Do List)
• Impact CEOs able to raise private capital
• Private investors ready to do impact deals
• Foundations ready to invest in imp funds
• Technologists with Impact + Capital Skills
• Fund Managers ready to run imp VC and seed
funds to syndicate deals
• University, govt, & NGO partners to help scale
impact products & services
18. Impact Capital + You
How can you individually and as a network,
take that leap of faith to leverage capital for impact?
carolynn@nwsvf.org
@SVSociety
www.nwsvf.org