A recap from Lena Gansterer on the CEE Impact Day held in Vienna on 4th July 2014:
“The meaning of wealth is to make positive contribution to humanity and the planet”, with these lines Charly Kleissner, Toniic opened the conference, taking place in Vienna last Friday. Different session formats and exciting locations (Reitersaal, OeKB and ERSTE Bank Lounge) hosted more than 100 people dedicated to investment strategies that generate financial return and improve social and environmental conditions. We welcomed a diverse group from private and institutional investors to entrepreneurs, and all the supporting organizations between them.
Evelina Lundqvist, The Good Tribe
Ten social ventures from Austria, Romania, Serbia, Switzerland and Slovenia from this year’s Investment Ready Program pitched their investment cases in front of the audience. The innovative business ideas presented new ways to connect with your neighbours, healthcare access apps, peer-to-peer extra curricular education for youth, reusable diapers and more – pitching for approximately EUR 3 million, all in all.Michael Altrichter, business angel explained that impact investing is all about maximizing impact. His first impact investments were done last year and he is very happy with how things are developing. “Is there impact? – that is the question each investor should ask himself,”Michael highlighted.
“Social impact used to be solely related to charity. Profit was solely related to business. We are changing that paradigm here. If two years ago I had to explain to corporates and investors what is the term impact investing, now all that is changing. And we are the ones who are creating that new ecosystem of impact investing“ Julia Balandina, JBJ Consult underpinned.
Lisa Kleissner, Toniic; Michael Altrichter, Business Angel
In the afternoon, crucial players in different fields came together for intimate discussions embracing the topics of crowd-investing for impact, impact banking, environmental impact, and early stage impact investing among others. “There is abundance of opportunities, and as the challenges get bigger, we become more dedicated. This whole event proves that we are not only believers but also doers”, was one of the final outcomes shared in the plenary session. The idea of impact investing is increasingly appealing for both social ventures and investors in the CEE region.“Europe has amazing potential. First of all, it still serves and maintains a rather successful social system. But we have to be careful and transform the system in a way that it won’t prevent entrepreneurship and innovation. Innovation is the only way forward and if I had one message to Europe, that would be: enable innovation, enable entrepreneurship,” Lisa Kleissner, a global impact investor.
Introductory Session to Impact Investment
Julia Balandina Jaquier, JBJ Consult
The CEE Impact Day created synergies of various efforts and is a starting point for more collaboration. Together, we enable innovation and pave the road to a new paradigm, one where profit meets purpose.
http://investment-ready.org/photogallery/irp-2014/cee-impact-day-2014/
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