New Social Entrepreneurs Fund launched by Bridges Ventures

Bridges Ventures today announces the launch of the Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund, a new fund dedicated to investment in social enterprises. The Fund is an initiative of the Bridges Charitable Trust and has so far raised £4.25 million. NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts, who made the first commitment to the fund and acted as a catalyst for private sector investment, will be hosting the launch event being held today.

The other Founder Partners are individuals and institutions from the financial sector and include Sir Ronald Cohen, Nigel Doughty, Harvey McGrath, The Apax Foundation, The Generation Foundation, Lehman Brothers Foundation Europe, Deutsche Bank, 3i and the Bridges Ventures team who have allocated funds from their profit share.  All the founder partners have supported the fund through donations to the Bridges Charitable Trust creating what will be an Evergreen Fund.

The Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund will invest in scalable social enterprises that deliver a high social impact and operate financially sustainable business models. The fund will invest up to £1m in each social enterprise, through hands-on, equity-like capital and aims to achieve a high social impact, through recycling capital into multiple projects, and to establish a track record of financial returns to attract additional investment into the sector.

The launch of the fund follows on from Bridges Ventures’ 2005 report entitled “Equity-like Capital for Social Ventures”, which was  based on its experiences and research in this area.  The report showed that successful social enterprises provide an innovative means of making a sustained social impact in areas of society where their help is much needed.  As demonstrated by Café Direct, the Eden Project and Fifteen Restaurant, the sector has enormous growth potential, but many social enterprises need capital to develop and they find raising investment appropriate to their needs to be a major obstacle.

The report also identified the need to give support to social enterprises to help them attract funding, and Bridges Ventures will work closely with UnLtd, the Foundation for Social Entrepreneurs to make sure that social entrepreneurs seeking funding are investment ready.

  Sir Ronald Cohen, Founding Chairman of Bridges Ventures said:

“The development of social enterprises is being held back by a chronic shortage of long-term capital. The launch of the Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund is an important development in addressing their long-term investment needs.” 

  Jonathan Kestenbaum, Chief Executive of NESTA added:

“We believe the fund will change the landscape for investment in social enterprises. In particular, the blend of public, private and institutional capital will have radical implications for the field”.

  Antony Ross, Director of the Bridges Social Entrepreneurs Fund commented:

“We are delighted to be launching this innovative fund and are looking forward to helping ambitious social entrepreneurs build their enterprises. The fund will be able to draw on Bridges Ventures’ established networks, experience and resources in reviewing opportunities, supporting investments and reporting to investors on both social and financial returns, and we hope that we will be able to establish a sustainable funding model capable of providing intelligent, much needed finance to an important and overlooked sector.”

Fund enquiries:

Social enterprises looking for growth capital, and investors interested in supporting the fund, should contact:

Antony Ross      /  Skye Elliott
antony@bridgesventures.com     skye@bridgesventures.com
020 7298 0189       020 7298 0182