Client Photography Spotlight: Spring // Emerging Impact Investor Program
Vancouver-based B Corporation Spring Activator is a global incubator, accelerator and advisory firm that helps impact entrepreneurs, investors and entrepreneurial ecosystem builders thrive.
They run a number of programs in person and virtually both here in Vancouver, and abroad as well. They kicked off their first ever Emerging Impact Investor Program in September 2018.
About the Emerging Impact Investor Program
The program is designed to train young professionals to learn early-stage impact investing.
Over the course of 10 weeks, the participants learned ALL things investing in early-stage businesses, and all with an impact angle too. Impact investing (definition: generating specific beneficial social or environmental effects in addition to financial gains) has become more and more of a mainstream investment sector and learning about it involves getting clued up around traditional investment must-do’s to bear in mind such as due diligence, negotiations, closing and exits as well as the impact pieces:
How to measure impact
How to creating an investing thesis with the impact angle measured in
During the program the participants interviewed and really got to know 20 careful selected social venture companies. They were trained on what to look for when making an investment, and as a group, the 20 companies were narrowed down to five.
These five companies were invited to pitch at the program grand finale in front of a big group of ecosystem partners, interested parties and the trainee investors, who together narrowed down the five companies to one.
The five companies that got chosen to go through to the pitching final:
Nada Grocery
Arbutus Medical
Open Ocean Robotics
This Fish
Signalytic
The lucky recipient of the grand prize of $100,000 funding was…
Open Ocean Robotics!
Open Ocean Robotics produce safe, efficient and an affordable way of collecting data from our oceans. Their autonomous boats use solar or wind power and can travel non-stop for a year (!) always collecting oceanic information and relaying it back to land.
Program Partners:
National Social Value Fund
Tandem Innovation Group Inc
Ink LLP
MNP
Active Impact Investments
A selection of photography from the event
Maxine is a photographer based in Vancouver, Canada, and works with small heart-centered businesses to create joyful, honest images so they can show up on-brand, and aligned with their values.