Social Innovation ForumThe Social Innovation Forum (SIF) launched its 4th annual Social Business Accelerator on January 19, kicking off 12 intense weeks of programming for the six social impact businesses in the cohort. Curious about what goes on in an accelerator? Interested in learning more about impact investing? We’ve launched this blog series, Insights into Impact Investing, to offer a glimpse inside our Social Business Accelerator and share some of our learnings from our work in the emerging field of impact investing.
“There is so much knowledge, energy, and connection in this room,” said Executive Director Susan Musinsky as she welcomed eight entrepreneurs representing the six "Impact Entrepreneur" businesses selected for the 2016 cohort and about 20 mentors at the kick-off of the Social Innovation Forum’s 2016 Social Business Accelerator on January 19.
There is so much knowledge, energy, and connection in this room.
The session began with introductions and welcoming remarks from Vikram Punwani, Managing Director at Bain Capital’s debt affiliate, Sankaty Advisors, and SIF board member, and Ben Chigier, former CEO and Chairman of two companies, PureSpeech and eScription. The group then moved onto the real introductions: the entrepreneur pitches. The leaders of each of the six businesses had 10 minutes to give their pitch as a way of introducing themselves to both the mentors and their peers.
Among the six businesses were new technologies and advances in medical devices, educational products, solar power access, and local government fiscal transparency. It will be interesting to see how these pitches evolve over the next 12 weeks as the entrepreneurs prepare for SIF's 4th annual Impact Investing Showcase on April 7.
The evening ended with an hour of “round-robin” small group conversations to help the mentors and entrepreneurs get to know each other better. Mentors had the opportunity to ask more probing questions about business models, target markets, and financial projections, while entrepreneurs had a chance to assess the range of skills and backgrounds the mentors bring to the table in preparation for next week’s mentor matching.