It Shouldn’t Be Easier To Find Your Mate Than To Find A Co-Investor Online
This post was originally produced for Forbes.
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Last summer, at a meeting of Seattle impact investors, one of the members said she didn’t have need for additional deal flow–investment opportunities–what she needed, she said, according to Nancy Reid, director of the Seattle Impact Investing Group, is a way to build an investor syndicate. “What we need is investor flow.”
Michael ‘Luni’ Libes, 47, and Matt Eldridge, 48, who heard that need and set out to create a nonprofit, online platform called Investorflow.org to address the concern.
Matt Eldridge, co-founder and COO of Investorflow.org
“Impact investors are spread around the world, investing all around the globe. This makes it incredibly difficult for those seeking funding to find these investors. It also means that investors tend not to know each other,” Libes said, framing the discussion.
Watch the full interview with Libes and Eldridge at the top of this article.
He points out the investors typically have specific areas of focus, so even if you have dozens of impact investors in a room, chances are there still isn’t a critical mass of interest for any particular deal.
There is a wide range of possible interests for impact investing, he notes. “The UN has organized 17 distinct sustainability goals, but number 1, No Poverty, includes everything from the poorest billion people to affordable housing in New York City.”
“Meanwhile, in reality, most impact investments come from investors talking to other investors, not from companies pitching investors. The problem isn’t a lack of dealflow, nor a lack of crowd. The problem is efficiently matching the right deal to the right investor, one investor to another. Or more simply… the problem isn’t dealflow but investorflow,” Libes says.
Michael ‘Luni’ Libes, Investorflow.org
The investing community is ready for a new solution, Reid suggests. “Fundraising is still awkward.” That is true even for investors. “It can be an uncomfortable dynamic,” she adds.
“Fundraising is also still unbelievably slow and difficult! It’s way easier to find the right babysitter or landscaper or date than it is to find the right co-investors, which is bizarre,” Reid concludes.
Janine Firpo, the impact investor Reid mentioned who coined the phrase investor flow, emphasizes that impact investing is best done in teams. “What I believed we needed was an ‘investor flow’ solution that could put trusted investors together to share deals. Aside from a few very wealthy and committed individuals, this type of investing is not a solo activity. It takes a community. Luni made the idea of an investor flow a reality.”
“The solution is investorflow.org, an online network where impact investors can hear about deals that fit their particular interests, vetted by fellow investors. All the deals are posted by investors seeking co-investors, not by entrepreneurs or fund managers,” Libes explains.
Libes says the site already has 157 investors signed up with 14 deals in the review pipeline. As yet, no deals have closed. Deals are coming in at a rate of about one per week. Still, there aren’t enough investors. “We think at somewhere between here and 1,000 we’ll have a critical mass where when there’s deal posted there will always be someone interested,” Libes says.
This idea represents some fresh thinking in the impact investing world. It will be interesting to see if the site reaches the “critical mass” needed to start funding deals regularly.
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Devin is a journalist, author and corporate social responsibility speaker who calls himself a champion of social good. With a goal to help solve some of the world’s biggest problems by 2045, he focuses on telling the stories of those who are leading the way! Learn more at DevinThorpe.com!
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