31.8.2022

Why do we need impact startups?

Society faces many challenges that require new ideas. We believe some ideas are more important than others – for the environment, our lives and those who come after us. Therefore, we accelerate impact startups – entrepreneurs who want to change the world.

Accelerate What Matters

Investment into Nordic impact startups has increased significantly in the last 10 years, and the Nordics is the most active impact investment region in the world. However, social innovation is under-financed and successful solutions need capital in order to scale. Since 2015, less than 25 percent of VC investments have been targeted to social Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s). 

We need to invest in a green, fair, prosperous and healthy future. 

– Impact StartUp accelerates highly promising entrepreneurs that change people’s lives. This fall, we will guide 10 Nordic impact entrepreneurs to accelerate their impact, through business development, measuring and managing their impact and connecting them to the right capital, says Marte Sootholtet CEO, Impact StartUp Norway. 

”Shouldn’t the state take care of social challenges?”

The public sector needs new and more effective solutions to social challenges, and impact entrepreneurs have many of these solutions. We need a shift from reacting to social problems to preventing them, and impact entrepreneurs’ innovative solutions are needed in this shift. This is why investing in and scaling impact entrepreneurs is an important part of systems change – we need to flip the pyramid!

Public budgets are consumed by reactive and sometimes inefficient solutions and there is little room for financing prevention and innovation, and we need to finance innovative solutions outside of the public system. 

– Impact entrepreneurs need coaching, support and training to scale social solutions in a financially sustainable way. If given the same support and opportunities as “regular” entrepreneurs, impact entrepreneurs can become innovators and partners in a new welfare system, says Jenny Carenco, Business Developer, Impact StartUp Sweden.

Our mission 

We, the society, need to increase investments in social innovation. We also need to change the system, one innovation at a time. Our contribution is to make sure social impact startups succeed in creating real impact- at scale.  

Click here to learn more about our accelerator program.