Launching the Igniterate Social Impact Fund
After starting a combined 18 businesses in eCommerce (Brands, Technologies, Marketplaces, and Agencies), and exiting 3 of them, we know how hard it is to successfully launch and scale a business in eCommerce.
After wrapping up our previous projects in 2020 news that Apple’s Net Income was $54.41bn (Source), at the same time the estimate to cure hunger in the US is $25bn (Source). Now, no one’s expecting Apple to solve America’s hunger problem, but the fact that it’s possible got us thinking…
What if a company was built to solve the greatest social problems we face today and be profitable? What if we could help build profitable, sustainable companies that’s purpose is to solve not only customer problems but societal problems at the same time?
We decided that our next project had to be focused on building companies that have a Social Impact. This leads to the most important question… How do we define Social Impact?
Social impact can take on many meanings. We look at “Social Impact” through 3 lenses:
This list is just starting to scratch the surface of what we believe can be improved, but areas that we think our team will be able to have the greatest impact.
Igniterate’s Focus:
Igniterate provides the capital, resources, strategies, and support, a growing eCommerce business needs. We believe impact and profits can support each other to grow a successful business.
Our fund mission is to support entrepreneurs launching and scaling the next generation of Social Impact eCommerce businesses. We’re constantly on the lookout for brands that will change how we live, and technologies to support our portfolio of brands.
We write $25k — $200k checks and will go out to raise additional funds from our network of 100+ eCommerce investors to bring in smart money. Our focus is placing investments in Pre-Seed and Seed rounds and helping our portfolio companies get ready for their Series A.
With the unique structure of our fund being attached to a Growth Studio and Brand Lab, we can leverage our team to help brands launch, grow and scale.
Growth Studio: Our team of eCommerce Developers, Marketers, and Operations experts are available to support our portfolio companies to scale infrastructure before hiring out the team.
Brand Lab: We’re not done launching new brands and apps. We work directly with entrepreneurs who have great ideas and are looking for help launching their businesses. Our team will roll up their sleeves and assist with customer research,
We might not be the largest check in every round, but we want to provide ongoing support to have an impact on each business we work with.
If you are currently looking to build the next generation of Brand, Marketplace, or Technology that has an impact on the world drop us a line. We’d love to see how we can help.
If you’re interested in investing in the Igniterate fund learn more on our Angelist page.