Impact Investing Markets
ImpactUs

New Impact Investing Marketplace Links Social Enterprises And Investors

Burgess COMMENTARY
There has been talk about the importance of impact investing for many years, and the talk is accelerating ... but the impact of impact investing is essentially irrelevant up to this point. I argue that the primary reason for this is that the essential metrics about impact are missing. Profit reporting is based on a double entry money accounting system ... but there is nothing like it for the impact dimension of company performance. In order for impact investing to get serious traction there has to be value accounting as well as money accounting and while there are initiatives to improve reporting (like GRI, IR. IRIS, SASB etc) none of these incorporate an underlying value accounting architecture. The various market initiatives are interesting, but without the underlying impact data, they will not be able to get much traction. Peter Burgess http://TrueValueMetrics.org
Peter Burgess

New Impact Investing Marketplace Links Social Enterprises And Investors

Impact investors often complain they can’t find enough viable social enterprises to invest in. And entrepreneurs bemoan a lack of available funding.

Now a recently introduced online impact investing marketplace hopes to address that problem. Called ImpactUs, the Washington, D.C.-based platform aims to provide a place where investors can find out about, research and connect with funds, operating companies and projects, and businesses raising money through private debt and equity offerings can list. Funding is from MacArthur Foundation, Ford Foundation, Enterprise Community Partners and City First Enterprises.


ImpactUs screen (Photo credit: ImpactUs) ImpactUs

The marketplace joins a number of other social impact platforms and stock exchanges, like Mission Markets in the U.S., Canada’s SVX and Singapore’s Impact Exchange.

For now, the platform is only open to accredited, invited investors. But ImpactUs, a registered broker dealer, plans to make it available to anyone as soon as possible, including regular civilians, as well as financial advisors and institutions investing on behalf of clients. The platform will operate a bit like an online brokerage, according to Reginald Stanley, co-founder, president and CEO.

The platform opened with four listings, but, according to Liz Sessler, co-founder and vice president, client engagement, there are another 35 in the pipeline. Deals work best at the $3 million to $5 million level, according to Sessler, though, “We will have deals that are $100 million,” she says. Offerings are in such thematic areas as the environment, clear water, education, healthy food and health care, or they can be placed –based, aimed at economic and community development issues. There will be a mix of models: mission-first, financial bottom line first or a blend of the two.

According to Sessler, the platform will provide companies with back-office support, a cumbersome and expensive process they usually would have to take care of on their own. That ability, plus the opportunity for investors to see an aggregation of offerings all in one place, will help boost deal flow, providing more money for entrepreneurs and options for investors, she says.

The plan is to have about $150 million in assets under administration by the end of the year and $3 billion in 10 years, with over 350 deals cycling through the platform.

The four listings include:



... Iroquois Valley Farms. It’s a farmland finance company providing land access to organic family farmers

... Shared Interest. Provides guarantees to South African financial institutions making loans to communities that typically have trouble getting access to capital.

... Common Bond Communities. A nonprofit developer of affordable housing, it has a fund for impact investors focused on preserving multi-family housing in the Midwest.

... Envest Microfinance. Provides early-stage loans to help hard-to reach organization engage in micro lending.


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Anne Field , CONTRIBUTOR I cover for-profit social enterprises and impact investing Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.