Kathleen McLeay and Julie Young of NCM were delighted to join the formal launch of ImpactVC in London last Thursday evening as a founding co-sponsor. The programme intends to build a community of leaders in the venture capital sector that will share resources and best practices to increase impact VC investing across Europe and the first members collectively manage £12bn, and includes mainstream venture capital firms as well as impact specialists.
The evening was kindly hosted by Balderton and provided a great launch pad for connecting with members and other co-sponsors. A lively panel discussion took place with speakers from Eka Ventures, Balderton, Big Society Capital, Houghton Street Ventures and Isomer. Guests also enjoyed delicious canapes provided by Clink which provides bespoke catering beyond the walls of prison and provides prisoners in training the opportunity to gain experience in event catering.
NCM Chief Executive Kathleen McLeay commented, “It was great to attend the formal launch event on Thursday evening and feel the energy in the room for positive change and a desire to accelerate growth in impact investing through advocacy and the development of open-source tools and products. As a starting point the programme has produced an ImpactVC Playbook to provide a framework for early-stage VC funds to start investing in impact and we look forward to being able to work with managers to support them with their fund administration and accounting allowing them to get on with the deal doing.