Seeding the Future: Challenges and Opportunities in Early Stage Impact Investing

To meet a promising entrepreneur, be convinced that their venture will thrive in the market, and subsequently invest at the ground floor leading to out sized returns; this is the exciting vision of seed stage investing. Although a risky proposition, it has nonetheless attracted many investors who want to take those bets realizing that their capital may be the only chance these ventures have to build and grow a potentially great solution. An entire ecosystem of venture capital and angel investing has been developed to support seed stage technology startups and other companies with large scale potential. As the market for impact investing has grown, however, seed stage investing has not kept apace, consequently limiting the deal pipeline.