Kieran John, Associate, Innovation, Mishcon de Reya
It feels really great to get in a room with the impact community discussing how to fund impactful companies. So on our panel we really enjoyed breaking down the kind of funding options through grant funding but also VC investment and Elsa’s panel, you know the alternative funding routes for impact ventures.
Liz Choonara, Executive Director of Commerce & Enterprise, Crisis
There’s absolutely value in coming together as a community which is basically trying to drive social impact through doing things differently and to hear tangible examples of how we can really support founders in delivering impact is brilliant.
Charlie Cook, Founder & CEO, Rightcharge
We’ve had an energy crisis for a year and a half, the Russia/Ukraine War had just started, inflation was shooting up, VC was crumbling um and so we were like well we are just going to keep ourselves open to like every single option here that’s on the table.
Emma Shaw, Co-Founder, Library of Things
Start with your purpose, the spirit of your company, what you stand for, what you love, what you believe in and holding that true before going into a, a fund raising financing plan.
Laurie Felker Jones, Adviser and Impact Capital Expert
Someone said recently at a panel um legal is not sexy but you cannot be sexy without legal um so um, I’ll take it as a compliment, yeah.
Gabrielle Morgan, Investment Manager, The Conduit Connect
So know the storytelling, think about diverse funding sources and talk to other founders would be, would be my recommendation.
Amal Osman, Investor Partnership Programme Lead, Innovate UK
It’s about unlocking the untapped talent in the UK and really it’s about having um a reflection of society when it comes to innovative solutions and the way that we think about problems.
Laurie Felker Jones, Adviser and Impact Capital Expert
This book ‘Adventure Finance’ is really helpful for those um capital providers and also founders to learn about their options but if you are not into reading you can always use Capital Explorer to go through a short quiz for founders and then also for funders and entrepreneur support organisations can use the tool on the back end to help their founders find what’s right them.
Elsa Mikaelian, Associate, Innovation, Mishcon de Reya
VC is not always going to be appropriate and it’s not always going to um support your ambitions but equally it’s possible to combine it with alternative funding options.
Charlie Cook,
It’s super interesting really listening to the structure that you guys have put together and you know, the alternative ways that you can fund.
Emma Shaw, Co-Founder, Library of Things
What was important for me and for Library of Things was thinking about who we wanted to share ownership of the company with, what powers we wanted to give away and what terms we would accept investment and that’s really shaped our journey to this point.
Liz Choonara, Executive Director of Commerce & Enterprise, Crisis
Really look for the capital, the investment, the funding that really works for your business and helps you to deliver your impact and ambitions.
Nell Lemaistre, Head of Programme, 100x
And then the opportunity is what I hear the most from founders as well, it’s just we need people to unlock the door so connect me with a mentor great, but also ask me to act as a supporter and not just someone who gives me advice but someone who truly can multiply my connections and my opportunities um and without the two it is really difficult to scale and to truly accelerate.
Gabrielle Morgan, Investment Manager, The Conduit Connect
The only way to help scale these sort of game changing companies uh, is to bring together lots of different sources of funding and ideas and so today’s event did exactly that.