As demonstrated by Café Direct, the Eden Project and Fifteen Restaurant, the social enterprise sector has enormous growth potential. However, many social enterprises need capital to develop and find raising the right kind of investment a major obstacle.
We're working with partners to help social enterprises find risk capital and prepare themselves for investment.
A range of investment readiness services exist in the private sector: corporate finance, pitch planning, seed camps, incubation and investment readiness are all commonplace. But services of this type are not widely available or delivered with any consistency for social entrepreneurs and social enterprises.
That's why we've set up UnLtd Advantage - a new programme run in partnership with UnLtd - that aims to fill this gap by offering a range of investment readiness services.
The scheme is aimed at social ventures with ambition and initial track record, which need inward investment to expand.