EcoVolve: Evolutionizing Ecosystems for Social Enterprises in the CEE Region

ongoing

The proposal is addressing the needs of early-stage social finance markets in the selected Central and Eastern European (CEE) Countries (Croatia, Czechia, Hungary, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Austria). The new eco-system to be developed as part of this proposal will address both the supply and demand side of the social finance markets. New innovative financing structures tailored to the needs of young social finance markets, encompassing impact-linked financial instruments (equity and equity-like) and provision through newly established impact fund (supply side) and related capacity-building service for social enterprises (SEs) (demand side) will be developed. The consortium is composed of organisations with extensive experience in impact investing and development of new financial instruments and organisations with experience in capacity-building and investment readiness programs both for early and established SEs. Moreover, the geographical composition of the consortium partners (Austria, Hungary, and Belgium), and their vast networks in the CEE region and Western Europe alike, will enhance the cross-border learning and dissemination of best practices and networking. The project will amongst other contribute to convergence of CEE social finance markets and thus mitigate their heterogeneity across the EU. The main outcome of this project include: continuing a capacity-building programme piloted in Austria, Hungary, and Romania from March 2024 to May 2025, and rolling it out to preferably four more CEE countries (5-7 countries in total); providing capacity-building to at least 60 (ideally 100) social enterprises; the provision of new impact-linked financing (equity and equity-like) to 20 social enterprises; setting-up of impact fund structure and to raise at least 20 mln EURs in funding from impact investors.