SVI, Social Venture Incubator

Project status: concluded

Description

The SVI project intends to provide support to social innovation and to introduce specific financial instruments for the “new” asset class of social enterprises.

This issue is particularly relevant in countries such as Italy, which has a relatively low level of development of the social financial market despite the presence of a solid and grounded fabric of social enterprises.

Apart from rhetorical statements, there are very few investors, banks or institutions fully involved in the social financial market (excluding traditional financial means such as loans or grants). This is particularly relevant for start-ups created or managed by young social entrepreneurs, which completely lack the up-front capital to cover the costs incurred during the pre-seed phase of development.

From this starting point, the project wants to establish a venture incubator in the area of social business, dedicated to providing consultancy and financial support to innovative ventures.

Euricse has the task of defining a system of indicators to measure the start-ups’ social impact in order to facilitate the financing of newly established company.

Objectives

Starting from the framework of the project’s main aim – the development of a social venture incubator in the social business area – the project wants to achieve four specific objectives:

  • refining, sharing and discussing different incubation and investment activities and revenue acquisition approaches;
  • defining a system of indicators (social metrics) to be applied during different incubation and investment stages: selection, portfolio management, exit;
  • strengthening the core partnership for successfully launching the social venture incubator;
  • implementing the strategy to incorporate the social venture incubator within 12 months.

Main results

The contribution of Euricse was focused on two fronts. Firstly, to help identify dimensions and metrics for evaluating social startups. Secondly, to design an ecosystem of resources and services to support the investment fund.

 

European program: EASI – Program for Employment and Social Innovation

Project duration: September 2014 – August 2015

Coordinator: Make a Cube 3

Partner: Euricse, Uman Foundation, R&P Legal

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