Impact investors are increasingly gravitating to place-based investing. The latest example: a new impact investing fund in Canada that will focus on loans to social and environmental enterprises in Southwestern Ontario.
The VERGE Breakthrough Fund, as it is called, also underscores the willingness of impact investors to experiment with new approaches.
The fund was created by VERGE Capital, a social finance program of Pillar Nonprofit Network, and MaRS SVX, an Ontario-based impact investing platform.
The $2 million Breakthrough Fund will make loans of up to $500,000 to enterprises that benefit the community, including affordable housing developments and established ventures tackling social or environmental issues.
Pooling and Redirecting Local Wealth
It complements VERGE’s Startup Fund, which since since 2014 has made loans of $5,000 – $100,000 to seed stage social enterprises. While the Startup Fund is financed by grants, the Breakthrough Fund pools money from accredited investors.
“Since we started, we’ve always dreamed of having a fund where investors can pool their money and collectively invest in social enterprise and impactful community ventures,” says Lina Bowden, VERGE’s founder.
More than $40 billion of investment capital from Southwestern Ontario residents is held in non-local, traditional investment portfolios, according to VERGE Capital’s website. “Redirecting even a fraction of this wealth towards local social and environmental enterprises will create positive community impact,” it notes.[…]
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