Sector fund trebles capacity as new providers are announced

The £10m Investment and Contract Readiness Fund, being delivered by The Social Investment Business on behalf of the Office for Civil Society with support from Deutsche Bank has trebled its capacity with the announcement of 12 new approved providers of investment and contract readiness services.

Ambitious social ventures looking to raise new investment or compete for public service contracts can apply for a grant between £50,000 and £150,000 to partner with specialist providers of a range of professional services including law, financial management, corporate finance and public service commissioning to become investment or contract ready.

The Fund is looking to diversify and strengthen the social intermediary market to help charities, social enterprises and other social ventures take advantage of new financing products social investors will offer.

The 16 approved providers include well known support organisations in the sector like ACEVO, Locality, ClearlySo, Social Finance, Triodos, Impetus Trust, specialist agencies like Pulse Regeneration, inspire2aspire, Resonance, Bridge Consulting, Bidright, Social Enterprise Support Centre as well as new entrants like Banks Cannell LLP, Claridge Capital, Advantage Business Agency and PwC.

Chief executive of the Social Investment Business, Jonathan Jenkins said: “One of the main things we are trying to achieve through this Fund is raising the quality of investment readiness support.

"Having this increasingly strong market place of approved providers will really help to achieve that. It is important that we have a spread of providers from sector specialists, such as Locality, to non-sector organisations, such as PwC.

"And whilst we would still encourage potential providers to apply, the focus of the Panel will now be the consideration of venture applications, with the first ventures already starting to receive their funding and support.”

Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd added: “The sector has long been saying that ambitious, visionary social ventures need relevant and targeted support to help them scale up their operations and multiply their social impact significantly.

"I am particularly encouraged to see big corporates recognising the importance of this space”.

The complete list of approved providers is available here.