Enabling environmentally clean, sustainable and inclusive jobs and growth in UK. Feasibility Study for a ‘virtual entrepreneurial ecosystem’ to connect impact ventures with public and private sector donors to fund SDG aligned initiatives

Progress2Impact aims to create a donation crowdfunding platform for the UN Sustainable Development Goals connecting early-stage impact ventures with a global community of donors to advance the SDGs. In light of COVID19, the need has emerged to adopt a more focused approach to support Government efforts in economic recovery. The proposed solution aims to create jobs and growth that are environmentally clean, sustainable and inclusive to achieve the net zero ambition targets and 'build back better' post-COVID19\. We will conduct a feasibility study for the creation of a 'virtual entrepreneurial ecosystem' with the aim of obtaining an in-depth understanding of specific customer segments, desirability, functionalities required to support the UK public sector in its ambition towards achieving the UK Clean Growth Strategy using CleanTech. **PROBLEM STATEMENT** Startups and scaleups are important to advancing the UK economy/Industrial Strategy; key to sharing the social and environmental problems the country (will) face(s) and why specifically impact startups are key to economic recovery. Startups are heavily affected by COVID19, an entire generation may never scaleup. With persistent liquidity constraints, there is a need for building an entrepreneurial ecosystem supportive of impact startups. **SOLUTION** The entrepreneurial ecosystem will connect impact startups from leading UK universities (Oxford, Cambridge, Coventry, Northampton, Birmingham, Warwick, Cranfield, Aston, Nottingham, Leicester, Lougborough, Keele) to public and private donors with an SDG agenda, including venture philanthropist, corporates, public agencies and impact investors. The nexus will be a crowdfunding technology platform facilitating the flow of funds towards the impact ventures. Access to these stakeholders will be ensured by Oxford University Innovation and the European Venture Philanthropy Association. Phase 1 will carrying out a feasibility study for the ecosystem, using principles of Agile, Lean Start-up, and Human Centred based on IDEO methodology. Phase 1 of the project will last a total of 3 months. It will focus on collecting evidence of market demand, alongside R&D, to support a business case for further investment required to develop a 'virtual entrepreneurial ecosystem' that redistributes financial resources (pre-seed) in the form of donations from public and private sector stakeholders to impact startups in their trajectory of CleanTech Innovation and net zero ambition targets and providing scaleup support to be tested in Phase 2\. The platform will embed a curation mechanism to select startups ensuring (1) anticipated measurable impact on SDGs, (2) inclusiveness of founders, (3) regional balance, (4) addressing Cleantech Innovation, the net zero ambition target outcomes.