News and Views

Izzy Obeng and Bayo Adelaja both created ventures that make it easier for diverse founders to grow a business. But social entrepreneurs of colour still face barriers, especially in accessing finance. Dr Yaz Osho explores what needs to change.

Leading UK social enterprise buys 28-year-old coffee bar chain, taking on 370 staff, as part of pandemic-assisted acquisition strategy to create more social businesses.

A £30m budget to tackle homelessness may sound tiny, but the social investment pilot is already leveraging millions more in investment. We unpick the details of a complex collection of funds – and find out what they hope to achieve. 

PLUS: Africa's first social bonds; first Women's Livelihood Bond matures; $58m fund to help farmers adapt to climate change; Bridges sells majority stake in World of Books, and more – all the deals you need to know about this month.

Millions of people need but can’t afford an air purifier. But a social entrepreneur, who just “happened to be in Beijing breathing dirty air”, decided to set off to understand the science, build his own devices and bust the myth that clean air had to be expensive.

Agribusinesses in Africa will be receiving support from a multi-investor backed fund led by the Acumen Resilient Agriculture Fund. These agribusinesses are helping farmers adapt to the climate crisis.

The fund's largest grant cycle to date will fund initiatives by a group of organisations, including BlueMark and B Lab, to improve impact data availability, metrics and measurement.

OPINION: Social investors are way ahead of the curve when it comes to understanding the potential of private capital to ‘level up’ the UK. Sarah Forster argues that now is the time to scale by sharing their place-based lens with institutional investors.

Locavore’s goal is to make grocery shopping more affordable for shoppers and beneficial to the local economy. The social enterprise supermarket is the latest business to receive support from Social Investment Scotland in the last few months.