Social Enterprise Incubator Seeks 40 New Companies
1 March 2017 at 8:35 am
The Difference Incubator (TDi) is on the lookout for 40 social enterprises in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to join its Two Feet accelerator program.
The social enterprises selected for the 2017 program will be split into four cohorts of 10, two in Melbourne, one in Sydney and one in Brisbane, for 12 fortnightly sessions.
Two Feet is delivered by a team TDi describes as hard-core business strategists and successful entrepreneurs, who help participants workshop their business and clarify their social or environmental mission with the aim of attracting impact investment.
TDi CEO Bessi Graham said Australia’s social enterprise sector has the potential to change the world.
“By helping entrepreneurs attract private capital for public good, social enterprises can solve some of our most pressing social and environmental challenges while making a profit, and investors can help make an impact while diversifying their portfolio,” Graham said.
“Two Feet is open to startups and entrepreneurs with an amazing idea, but also to growing enterprises and established businesses.
“The only criteria are that you must be deeply committed to making a significant social or environmental impact, and be ready to make that possible by becoming investable.”
Graham recently shared her insights on starting a social enterprise in the first episode of Not For Podcast’s How to Social Enterprise series.
TDi’s team and guest lecturers will cover business strategy, piloting and prototyping, marketing, finance, funding and structuring, pitching to investors, and impact measuring, as well as providing one-on-one mentoring.
A national graduation ceremony is held at the end of the program, which includes the Dragons’ Den pitching competition.
Two graduates from the 2016 Two Feet program secured $470,000 from private investors.
Last year’s participants also scooped up some of the sector’s accolades, including Zoe Black from Happy Paws Happy Hearts who won the Westpac Foundation Social Change Fellowship and Nirary Dacho from Refugee Talent who was named one of Business Insider’s Coolest 100 in Australian Tech.
Entrepreneurs interested in the program can get in touch with TDi before 3 March to schedule an interview in Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne.
