How is it to set up a first impact fund – what are the opportunities and challenges and what are the things that should be especially taken care of.
This, and much more was discussed at Impact Week on 1st December at the Impact Busters session where our partners from Armenia, Georgia and Ukraine shared their experiences about setting the first-time funds – first team, first fund in their country, first impact investment and first investors on board.
The interactive session brought together a variety of stakeholders from the impact space who shared their insights in the pioneering process of setting up a first-time fund, from setting up the fund to fundraising and deploying first investments.
Kristine Kandelaki, director of Actio, Georgia’s first impact fund who presented the fund at the session said: “Actio is taking its first steps in the challenging impact investing world, however with the help of our partners we are sure that we will be able to create meaningful impact for proper and the planet. The insights and feedback received at the Impact Busters session have been extremely interesting and helpful.”
Alena Kalibaba, Co-founder of SILab Ukraine spoke about the challenges of running an impact fund in war conditions:
“It was a great opportunity to get feedback from experienced impact funds and experts related to the impact investments during the workshop. We are in Ukraine facing a lot of challenges as an Impact Fund how to manage our portfolio in war conditions. One of them is how to correctly identify impact businesses in condition when 90% of businesses started to provide impact on regular base from the beginning of crisis. I have got few very important insights from Funds which are working in conflict zones.” adding that the connections with experienced funds created during the session are very valuable and will help in making their activities in Ukraine more impactful and effective.