The European Center for Social Finance was created to help establish best practices and distribute knowledge in financing the provision of social services and social innovations. It works at the intersection of theory, practice and policy and views social finance as a process which encompasses among others selection criteria, financing structures and impact assessment. The Center is based at the Munich Business School and works with a network of partner organizations across Europe.
We publish on a regular basis articles on current developments, deep dives and deals of the week. Take a look below.
Deals of the Week – Oct 23, 2020
RaiseNow has raised $6 million in a Series A+ round. Zurich-based RaiseNow is managing the payments related to fundraising campaigns for 4,000 organizations. Up to now, they have processed 2.5 million transactions and a donation volume of over €300 [...]
A few thoughts on criminal entrepreneurship
A few years ago, I was invited to give a talk to 30 German Chiefs of Police. I took the opportunity to talk about social entrepreneurship and my perspective on criminal entrepreneurship. The interesting part was that all of [...]
Deals of the Week – Oct 16, 2020
There was also one deal this week which we have found especially interesting. Before we come to Murfy, we take the opportunity to talk about our approach. Each week we look at what happened in the wider impact space. [...]
Will sustainable finance as the umbrella of investment strategies “of the ecological and social transition” become readable?
The actors of social finance, whose vocation is to invest in companies aiming to tackle social and environmental issues, are constantly challenged by their own investors to prove the consistency and the quality of the impact they generate. Among [...]
Deals of the Week – Oct 9, 2020
Meatless Farm has raised €26.4 million. The current pace of investments in the alternative meat industry keeps surprising us. The Leeds-based company was founded in 2016, launched its products in 2018 and has already raised €14.5 million in a [...]
A growing segment of the banking industry
Back in 2014 I was working on an analysis of the credit default rates of social enterprises. The only way to possibly estimate them was using the balance sheet of those banks which are interchangeably defined as value banks, [...]