Nesta Impact Investment, the London, UK-based investment arm of UK social agency Nesta, launched £50m investment strategy that will enable them to support early stage technology businesses.
The new strategy aims to underpin and augment this position as Nesta invests in a new generation of game-changing startups.
Over £25m of the £50m fund has been allocated to invest directly in early stage startups over the next five years. With this new fund, the team at Nesta Impact Investments will be making investments of between £500k and £1m in Seed-Series A stage startups, with the ability to invest up to £4m over multiple rounds. They plan to make between five and ten investments per year and.
In line with Nesta’s 2030 goals, Nesta Impact Investments will back startups building high-impact solutions in one of three key areas: those giving every child a fair start, those that help people live healthy lives, and solutions that create a sustainable future where the economy works for both people and the planet.
The remaining capital will help support the continued growth of Mission Studio – a joint venture between Nesta and Founders Factory which focuses on launching new mission-led startups and providing them with initial investment needed to get off the ground – and enable a range of grant-making initiatives.
Since 2012, Nesta Impact Investments has invested directly in over 30 early-stage companies from two previous funds. Their current portfolio includes digital educational resources platform Bibliu, AI skin cancer tool Skin Analytics, and data and software provider for schools, Arbor. Notable exits include FutureGov and BeApplied.
Nesta Impact Investments has also announced the first three investments from this new fund, all of which have female founders. They are:
- tech-enabled childcare platform Koru Kids;
- Type 2 diabetes reversal programme Habitual Health, and
- a ‘gastric balloon in a pill’ developed by Oxford Medical Products.
FinSMEs
01/12/2022