West Australian early-stage impact investment capacity builders Impact Seed and crowdfunding platform StartSomeGood announce partnership.

Impact Seed, a Perth-based early-stage impact investment capacity builder with a mission to connect Social Business founders with angel investors, today announced it has partnered with Sydney-headquartered crowdfunding platform StartSomeGood to grow the for-profit social enterprise ecosystem in Australia.

Impact Seed are passionate about creating sustainable social impact and creating a working space for Social Businesses to be identified, supported and to thrive. They want to build the pool of investment, and the number of investments in Social Businesses that can provide market-rate financial return to investors. 

Co-founder Sven Stenvers says “Ultimately we’re all about connecting investors and Social Business Start-ups so that more great enterprises can launch and scale to real impact and real returns. And one of the ways social businesses and early supporters are connecting today is through crowdfunding.” 

“When you realise that over 50% of all crowdfunds have a social dimension you begin to see what a natural fit crowdfunding and Social Business are. We are excited about The Australian Government’s initiatives to support crowdfunded equity as this will only amplify the potential of crowdfunding as a key seed funding source for Social Businesses. We didn’t want to wait for crowdfunded equity to start helping the social businesses we work with to harness the power of crowdfunding to launch new products and explore new markets.” 

“When we explored the market StartSomeGood were a natural partner. They too are focused on growing the Social Business ecosystem, they have one of the best project success rates in crowdfunding and they themselves are a Social Business and registered B Corporation.” 

StartSomeGood co-founder and CEO Tom Dawkins says “We are very excited to partner with Impact Seed to support the growth of the social business community in Western Australia and nationally.” 

“Thanks to this agreement Impact Seed will be the second partner to gain access to our soonto-launch API, allowing them to white label our platform. This will allow Impact Seed-supported enterprises to access StartSomeGood’s best-in-breed support, which helps social entrepreneurs succeed at crowdfunding at industry-best rates, while presenting their campaigns on the Impact Seed site and benefiting from their local connections and passionate advocacy.” 

With a plan to launch WA's own curated social business crowdfunding platform through StartSomeGood in December, this partnership is only the second of its kind, after ING DIRECT’s Dreamstarter program which debut StartSomeGood’s API in October. 

Rather than duplicating services this partnership allows each organisation to focus on their unique strengths, forming a powerful model of collaboration and sector-building. 

About StartSomeGood 

StartSomeGood focuses exclusively on social good projects that are for the benefit of the community or environment. They have helped almost 700 projects raise over $7 million. With 53% of projects reaching their fundraising goals, StartSomeGood has one of the best success rates in the industry. Amongst their successes is the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre’s Food Justice Truck, Australia’s most successful social enterprise crowdfunding campaign with $153,000 raised to increase nutrition and reduce hardship for more than 2,000 asylum seekers annually. StartSomeGood was a co-recipient of the Social Investment Award at the Australian Social Enterprise Awards 2015 for their role in the Food Justice Truck fundraiser. 

Over the past three years they have pioneered a matched funding model we call Crowdmatch. Existing partners include ING DIRECT, English Family Foundation, The Foundation for Young Australians, Social Enterprise Finance Australia and several city governments. These partnerships have catalysed almost $1 million in social investment so far. 

Find out more about StartSomeGood at www.startsomegood.com 

Impact Seed was founded to fill an un-met need: A lack of deal flow for investors in Social Business startups. Why? Because we’re passionate about creating sustainable social impact and creating a working space for Social Businesses to be identified, supported and to thrive. 

We believe Social Business is the future way of all business. Consumer choice is increasingly driven by conscience, not just product value. An overwhelming majority of under 40’s believe business’ purpose extends beyond profit and 60% of High Net-Worth’s see driving social impact with their investments as ‘extremely or very important’. 

Our founding team have diverse and successful experience in commercial, startup, not for profit and social impact sectors in Australia and globally, and are passionate about growing Social Businesses and impact investment. 

Find out more about Impact Seed at www.impactseed.org