Impact Baltic

Impact Baltic (Establishing a pan-Baltic investment fund for social enterprises) is a 30-month project funded by the European Social Fund + (ESF) under the European Union. It runs from January 2025 to June 2027 and is led by Baltic Innovation Agency (BIA) in partnership with Reach for Change Sweden, Reach for Change Latvia and supported by the Lithuanian Private Equity and Venture Capital Association.

The project was created to solve a key challenge: social enterprises in Estonia Latvia and Lithuania often struggle to find tailored investment. Social finance market in the Baltic region is still developing and many impactful businesses lack the support they need to grow. Impact Baltic will create a dedicated impact investment fund and help social enterprises become ready for external investment.

BIA is the lead partner in charge of managing and supervising the project. BIA is also coordinating the projects’ analytical work and study visits. As lead partner, BIA also contributes to most other tasks with its prior experience and topical insights.

The project aims to launch a new fund for social enterprises and prepare 20 social enterprises to receive investment. Main steps include:
– Conducting a detailed study of the local social finance market to understand investor needs and gaps;
– Designing the fund including its strategy legal structure and partners;
– Signing a memorandum of understanding with potential fund partners before raising capital;
– Running an investment readiness programme for 20 social enterprises including training mentoring and investor matchmaking leading up to demo day pitches.

Impact Baltic will help social enterprises in the Baltics access the finance they need to grow and scale. The new fund will provide long-term financial support while the capacity-building programme will increase the investment-readiness of enterprises across the region. This will strengthen the local social economy create more jobs and solve social and environmental challenges.