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Connect $100k+ to your impact startup through the Impact Investor Challenge.
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The Impact Investor Challenge provides you the resources and support you need to raise capital for your impact startup. Connect with like-minded impact entrepreneurs and investors actively seeking to invest in impact-driven startups.
We offer different editions of the Challenge format to address different themes and geographies. By doing so, we seek to diversify the impact investing ecosystem and drive sustainable solutions to global challenges.
The Women Led Impact Investor Challenge (Women Led IIC) was created because women founders in Canada are still vastly underestimated and underfunded. This IIC will focus on socially and/or environmentally driven women-led ventures at the Seed or Series A stage looking to raise capital and scale impact. It’s a 12-week custom training program to help women led ventures build the capital strategy and connections they need to realize their growth goals.
The program has 2 phases of support for ventures:
Investment Readiness Programming for 15 ventures:
Impact Investor Challenge for 5 ventures:
In parallel, in partnership with the Telus Pollinator Fund for Good, a group of new and experienced investors will be building their impact investing expertise simultaneously.
Firm eligibility:
Applications are closed for 2023, but you can still download a program pack to learn more about the program here.
If you’re a woman founder raising seed-series A capital, learn how you can be part of our 2023 Women Led Impact Investor Challenge, presented by the TELUS Pollinator Fund. Hear from last year’s winner Dr. Karolina Valente who walked away with a $293, 000 investment for her innovative impact company, VoxCell Bioinnovation.
Many entrepreneurs are leading the charge in innovation with brilliant ideas—ideas that require funding and mentorship to accelerate the transformations they seek to make.
How can investors help make an impact through capital and fuel this much-needed impact forward? What does it mean to be an impact investor?
What does this space look like beneath the surface, and what kinds of companies are emerging as leaders?
Over 11 weeks, Spring facilitates a cohort of impact ventures and impact-curious investors in navigating the fundraising process. Through the program, and beyond, you can expect to:
Catalyze your launch into fundraising, with a chance to win a $100k+ investment
Deepen and clarify your understanding of what investors are looking for
Join a supportive like-minded community and connect with potential investors
Polish up your pitch and other assets to be presented to potential investors
The Impact Investor Challenge is breaking down barriers associated with raising capital as an impact venture and achieving impact at scale. Here’s who we often see participating in the program:
“I hope every entrepreneur gets the opportunity to go through a program like this. Working with investors with a wide range of expertise in healthcare, ranging from medical doctors to decision-makers in some of Canada’s largest healthcare institutions, offered us a perspective we wouldn’t have received anywhere else.“
Co-founder & CEO of UVX, Health IIC Spring 2022 Winner
“There’s so much added value to gain from IIC apart from the $100,000 investment prize at the end. Investors with whom I met and built relationships through IIC genuinely care about impact investing and have coached us through the program, often scheduling one-on-one sessions with my team. Even though we didn’t end up winning the investment prize at the end, we now have people reaching out to us interested in investing!”
Founder & CEO of Ava Technology, IIC 2021 Finalist
“We used the knowledge we gained to successfully raise and close our pre-seed round. The Impact Investor Challenge was a great opportunity for our company to learn about raising a fund by working directly with angel investors and benefiting from the targeted programming delivered by Spring and their partners. Being a part of the program also raised our company profile and winning the $100,000 investment was amazing, not only for the investment but for the validation it provided to other investors, which was critical in helping us raise our first round.”
Co-founder & CEO of Open Ocean Robotics, Winner of the 2019 Impact Investor Challenge
“The Impact Investor Challenge gave me the opportunity to exercise my professional skills in more ways than I could have imagined. It provided me with a thorough overview of the funding world and an introduction to an incredible network of like-minded supporters and investors who all view business as a force for good. I was able to develop in areas that I hadn’t previously exercised (pitching in front of a large audience) and gained a great deal of confidence throughout the process.”
COO & Co-founder at NADA, 2019 Impact Investor Challenge Finalist
“The competition has really been instrumental in shaping a very transformative time for our company. The scrutiny of opening your everyday decisions to a panel of people over this duration of time and intensity, for an investment fund where you have an authentic chance to finance your company, has been such a valuable experience. Thank you Spring Activator for this education!”
Co-founder & CEO at Acterra Tech, 2020 Impact Investor Challenge Finalist
Some of the things you'll want to know before we get started.
During 2-hour weekly sessions, you will learn the ‘what, why, and how’ of approaching impact investors while getting the unique chance to work directly with them.
The top venture applicants will be selected to attend orientation and pitch their companies to the investor cohort. Semi-finalists will then be chosen by the investor group to pitch again, after which at least three finalist ventures will be selected. The venture cohort will then participate in five, 2-hour evening sessions with the investor group. One company will win the $100,000+ investment at the Pitch Finale.
*Please note, companies are expected to have representation from the founding team at each session
You are welcome to apply for as many challenges as you are eligible for. Each cohort adopts a unique impact theme and/or is restricted to a certain geographic location. You can browse the upcoming cohorts below!
There are no fees to participate in the program, however any of the finalists who receive investments from the investor program participants, program alumni, or Spring Investing Collective members will be invoiced 3% of the total investment amount. This is an administrative fee that helps cover the transaction costs.
It takes a community to catalyze change and fuel the innovation the world needs. If you are interested in being part of the impact investing movement as a partner of our programming, reach out to us today!
We acknowledge that we are headquartered on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō, and sel̓íl̓witulh (Tsleil-Waututh) peoples, and as a global team we’d like to extend this acknowledgement to all those who have historically stewarded and nurtured the lands we live, work, and play on today.