South African incubator and consulting firm Impact Amplifier has announced it has received a “significant investment” from Dutch funding agency Stichting DOEN Foundation, which will enable it to expand its acceleration services across South Africa, particularly for early stage businesses focused on environmental solutions.
Impact Amplifier launched in 2011 and describes its mission as accelerating the growth and capital provision of high impact, innovative businesses in Africa.
“Impact Amplifier fundamentally believes in the power of entrepreneurs to solve the seemingly intractable problems confronting our Continent. The DOEN Foundation’s investment is a vital contribution to our efforts to develop impact businesses toward realising their full potential for social and environmental change,” said Max Pichulik, partner at Impact Amplifier.
DOEN said it was committed to solving the problems early stage impact entrepreneurs face in securing investment capital.
“We support innovative impact focused enterprises in Africa, Asia and in the Netherlands, especially those with inspiring solutions for making the economy greener and more socially inclusive,” said chief executive officer (CEO) Nina Tellegen.
“The acceleration programmes of Impact Amplifier, seek to scale those solutions. By accessing capital and scaling the growth of impact businesses in South Africa, it will strengthen the broader social enterprise sector throughout Africa and support our vision of social inclusivity.”
Impact Amplifier looks to address Africa’s socio-economic and environmental challenges, by providing investment readiness and capital raising acceleration to high impact businesses, consulting large corporations on supply-chain sustainability, advising development finance institutions and foundations on developing impactful investment ecosystems in Africa, and building portfolios for impact investors.
It launched its Enterprise Elevator accelerator programme in 2012, while one major ongoing commitment is the Green Pioneer Accelerator, which is being delivered in South Africa and Kenya through partnerships with GrowthAfrica, VC4Africa and Hivos.
Disrupt Africa reported in January 12 startups were selected to form the South African cohort of the accelerator, while eleven startups are also taking place in the Kenyan leg of the programme.
Participating companies are being assisted in scaling their businesses and offered the chance to earn EUR100,000 (US$116,000) in funding. The 16-week acceleration programme is well underway and startups will receive dealmaking support for the rest of 2015. Classes end at the end of April and a final pitch event to a select group of investors will take place in early June.
