Social Investment Business to Run New £10 million ICR Fund

The Social Investment Business has been selected to run the Investment and Contract Readiness (ICR) Fund which will launch at the end of April 2012.

The £10million ICR Fund, provided by the Office for Civil Society, aims to help social ventures prepare themselves to raise additional social investment and/or to run public services.

The fund will focus on supporting social ventures that have the potential for high growth and delivering positive social impact. It is designed to help social ventures that are not ready for investment or ready to win a public service contract. It will help social ventures identify appropriate advisory support services that can provide expert, professional technical, financial, business or other support to social ventures.

Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd said:

'The fund will create a step change in the number and scale of social ventures that are investable and able to compete for public sector contracts on a level playing field, and thus bring social impact at a really significant level.'

Although the eligibility criteria have yet to be revealed, potential entrants can register their interest as long as they:

  • Are an organisation that is formally structured.
  • Have products or services with a track record of delivering social value and which do or could improve services.
  • Generate revenue from these products and services.
  • Have the ambition for significant growth and scale delivering services.
  • Want to raise investment of at least £500,000 to develop services or win contracts within the next 18 months.

The ICR Fund will be led by an investor panel which will be chaired by Big Society Capital. The panel will include Big Issue Invest, the Big Lottery Fund, Bridges Ventures, CAF Venturesome, Deutsche Bank, Esmee Fairbairn, Finance South East, NESTA, Panahpur, NatWest Bank, Social Investment Business Group and Triodos Bank.

Interested organisations can find further information on the ICR Fund website where they can also register their interest by online email.