Our new report, Good Incubation, charts the rise of social venture incubation, with a focus on what can be learned by this burgeoning sector from programmes around the world.
In the last five years we’ve seen the number of social venture incubation programmes grow to over 230 programmes worldwide. Our new report, Good Incubation, charts the rise of social venture incubation, with a focus on what can be learned by this burgeoning sector from programmes around the world.
Social ventures are increasingly seen as an important way of solving the social and environmental challenges of our age. The world of social impact investment has developed to finance and support these ventures, once they have shown that they can be successful both financially and in terms of their impact.
While the impact investment market is estimated to be worth £202m in the UK, there is a gap between early-stage social ventures and the later stage investment that is increasingly available. In part, the rise of social venture incubation is a response to this gap in the social investment pipeline, helping ventures to prove an idea, develop a team and accelerate their progress before accessing more substantial finance.
In partnership with Paul Miller from Bethnal Green Ventures, we interviewed over 20 managers and advisers to social venture incubation programmes from around the world as well as founders of ventures supported by those programmes, undertaken in 2013 and 2014. We also visited programmes to see first-hand some of the techniques they use.
We found that there are five models that have emerged to support early stage social ventures:
As a field, social incubation is still very young, with most programmes being less than five years old. However, during our research we noticed several distinct trends:
Through our research and our own observations, we’ve identified a number of clear lessons for programme managers, investors and policy makers involved in developing the impact investment ecosystem. The recommendations in the report include:
Good Incubation is an attempt to cover some of the lessons learned by programmes around the world and share those with the growing UK social incubation sector. We recognise that this report is just a start and there’s a need to develop insights based on robust evidence of what works, and to create opportunities for programmes to come together and share. We hope that there will be a willingness to develop this over the coming years.
Contact the authors: @rellimlaup @JessStacey