The total capital raised by clients of impact investment intermediary ClearlySo has now surpassed GBP100 million with GBP60 million coming directly from ClearlySo’s network of institutional and high-net-worth individual investors.
ClearlySo has helped more than 75 businesses and funds, including Ethical Property Company to let office space to “social change” tenants, Green Rooms to provide affordable accommodation for artists and urban regeneration in North London, Impact Ventures UK to raise money for their Impact Investment Fund, Aduna to create demand for under-utilised natural products from small-scale producers in rural Africa, and Harry Specters to produce award-winning chocolate and provide employment and training opportunities for young people with autism. The company has leveraged it’s financial acumen and investor networks to guide these firms through a broad spectrum of financing using equity, debt, and quasi-equity instruments, and capital raises ranging from GBP50,000 to more than GBP10 million.
The company was founded in 2008 ‘to help create 100 JustGivings’. JustGiving is a high impact business previously Chaired by ClearlySo CEO and Founder, Rodney Schwartz. He and his colleagues recognised that such entrepreneurial models had enormous potential to leverage capital to solve pressing social and environmental problems.
Since this time ClearlySo has seen tremendous growth as impact investing has risen to prominence and impact is being considered in a growing number of investment decisions along with risk and financial return. Surpassing the GBP100 million milestone follows on the back of a tremendous end to 2015, which saw a record GBP31 million of capital raised by their clients, and the largest growth capital deal for a single enterprise to date, the GBP10 million capital raise by HCT Group.
Rodney Schwartz, CEO and founder of ClearlySo, says: “The world is changing, as entrepreneurs and investors focus on the impact of their investments. My colleagues and I at ClearlySo are proud to be helping to facilitate this change, and were grateful to have had the chance to assist over 75 world-changing clients. As the figures start to climb into the billions, we can all feel that a positive difference is being made in people’s lives.”
