EVPA and EBN have signed a partnership agreement to foster their collaboration

EVPA and EBN have strengthened their collaboration and have signed a new partnership agreement that foresees three phases: Phase 1 - Building mutual understanding; Phase 2 - Engaging with each other’s networks around venture philanthropy and Phase 3 - Co-creating the national market for venture philanthropy, making Europe a thriving space to connect investors for impact with incubators and accelerators with an impact focus, and their respective enterprises across countries, primarily in Europe.

It’s already some years that EVPA and EBN promote joint activities to connect business innovation support and impact incubation services to the patient capitals of investors for impact to significantly increase their potential to benefit people and the planet. The need for an even closer collaboration has emerged now that more and more incubators and accelerators start to recognise the impact value of socially oriented ventures and see the opportunity to connect them with a specific group of investors, the investors for impact which mission is to make social purpose organisations succeed by providing financial and non-financial support.

The two networks will design and promote joint activities aimed at bringing together EBN’s certified business innovation centres (EU|BICs in short) and investors for impact to better connect European entrepreneurs with impact-oriented sources of funding and to increase their capacity in tackling today societal and environmental challenges with their innovative solutions. As a first action, please note that both EVPA and EBN will contribute to the opening session of the upcoming Webinar Series “Impact Investing: dal dire al fare” (translation: ‘’Impact Investing: from saying to doing’’ - between 14 September and 26 October 2020) hosted by the Italian EBN member AR-TER. This webinar series of six online sessions will present facts and figures, business models and investment strategies, and actors of the Italian impact investing ecosystem, in conversation with its protagonists and their business support actors (one session will be held in English).

Steven Serneels, Chair of EVPA:

‘Investors for impact offer a unique opportunity to access financial and non-financial resources to those incubators and accelerators that strive to embed impact at the heart of a business. The partnership with EBN will help to connect our members with these actors, allowing organisations to grow into purpose-driven businesses. It is of the utmost importance that incubators and accelerators who are serious about this impact journey can find a friendly home within EVPA to feel supported in their endeavour to create successful social businesses.’

Laura Lecci, CEO EBN:

‘EBN recognises that impact-driven entrepreneurship, by promoting new and scaling of existing companies, provides opportunities for Business Support Organisations (BSOs) to expand their scope. Including the specific tools and methods needed to support impact-driven businesses in our members’ service-portfolios aligns closely with our community’s mission. We see that entrepreneurial innovation has the potential to drive both economic and social development within European regions, leading to greater wellbeing for its societies. With EVPA we seek to take the next step in this journey and bring innovation to finance and finance to impact-driven innovation.’

EBN and EVPA endeavour to provide a steady pipeline of innovative, investment-ready companies and foster supportive investment opportunities. Among others, the networks will do this by improving knowledge on investing for impact and on the services and support measures deployed by the quality-certified business support organisations EU|BICs.

To know more on the existing opportunities of collaboration between investors for impact and incubators and accelerators in the impact ecosystem, have a look to the webinar that was organised in May 2020 by EVPA and EBN: Enablers of Impact: The Role of Incubators and Accelerators in Bridging Investment and Solutions and download the EVPA report: ‘Enablers of impact’.