As Connect Ventures announce their third fund, we are delighted to share Big Society Capital’s investment in the fund – and background on why we invested.
Through our venture investments, we are seeking to support an ecosystem that nurtures and scales innovative ways of tackling social problems.
We want to show it is possible for purpose-led startups to deliver strong financial returns and meaningful social impact. At the heart of this are values aligned venture investors who are thoughtful about impact and bring deep expertise in venture investing.
Connect Ventures share our belief that purpose-led startups can be a driving force for good and have a wealth of experience working with founders to grow and scale their businesses.
Connect is a London-based VC firm focusing on seed-stage technology investments. As they launch their third fund, they can look back on more than 50 investments to date and strong performance from their existing funds. Previous investments include Citymapper, FiiT, Typeform, Lifebit, Kheiron Medical and Second Nature.
Connect’s thesis is to ‘invest in purpose-led founders obsessed with solving hard problems at scale by creating products and companies that people love’. For us, this overlaps with impact investing in two ways: by intentionally investing in purpose-led founders, and by focusing on products that address meaningful problems. In many such models, impact is a driver of value. Where this is the case, Connect is committed to assessing and measuring that impact. While Connect’s fund will not invest wholly in ‘impact startups’, we believe that they will make many impactful investments in the coming years.
Connect’s recent investment into Stairway Learning is a great example of this. Stairway provide affordable and accessible Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) tuition for 16 to 18 year olds through an online personalised learning platform.
We look forward to being part of Connect’s journey and building an impactful partnership with the team as they embark on fund three.
