What if a private investor wants to get involved in setting up a Social Firm?
These enquiries are currently not very common as: • most social enterprises have growth rates that are not attractive to private investors as they compare badly with private sector for-profit businesses; • most social enterprises can access start-up grants from government and Trusts as long as they are non-profit distributing organisations. This gives social enterprises a competitive advantage as they do not have to repay this investment; • some grant funds are better than others, and many have drawbacks related to admin or outputs that mean the business is compromising on its business focus. In some cases a social enterprise would be better rejecting the grant route and getting a private investor on board to create a well supported, very focused and dynamic business; • we don’t yet have a network of high net worth individuals interested in investing in Social Firms, but this is something Social Firm UK is working on. We believe that there is a potential pool of investors that will be
Related Questions
- Are there advantages in using the Wholefood Planet package as opposed to setting up a new Social Firm selling wholefood from scratch?
- Does Sentinel prefer to be the sole institutional investor or will Sentinel co-invest with another private equity firm?
- How was the setting up of the Star Social Firm quality standard funded?
