UK universities team up to launch Impact 12 fund

Impact 12 has been developed by Social Investment Scotland (SIS), an impact investor and responsible finance provider based in Edinburgh, in partnership with the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, Northampton, Coventry and eight universities comprising the Micra Project (Aston, Birmingham, Cranfield, Keele, Leicester, Loughborough, Nottingham and Warwick). Oxford University Innovation leads the consortium.

The fund will launch later this year with an initial fundraising target of £8m, according to a statement. It will have a 10-year lifespan.

Impact 12 will be managed by SIS Ventures, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SIS; SIS Ventures said it will shortly be recruiting a dedicated Impact 12 Senior Investment Manager whose initial focus will be on fundraising.

The fund will aim to accelerate the development and success of impact-led social ventures spun out of universities. It will support social ventures with bespoke finance packages, including equity investment and debt.

The capital raised will be deployed to support up to 15 social ventures from across the partner universities with both seed and follow-on funding over the next 10 years.

SIS said Impact 12 will fundraise among alumni networks as well as the wider impact investor community. It cited figures from the annual Case-Ross Support for Education Survey, showing that new philanthropic funds secured by UK and Irish higher education institutions reached £1.3bn in 2019-20.

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