Investment that values social, environmental, and financial returns
We’re shifting our investment culture whilst creating opportunities for change-making enterprises to scale.
What is impact investment?
Impact investment is investing with the intention of generating a measurable social or environmental impact alongside a financial return. To find out more read our FAQs.
How we’re making investment more impactful
Advisory
Offering advisory services to help organisations understand and transition to impact investing.
Readiness
Growing impact investment readiness through our Impact Investment Readiness Programme.
Fund Management
Managing NZ’s first impact investing fund and advising on the establishment of other funds.
Impact investing advisory services
Ākina Invest has been building the impact investing market place in New Zealand for almost a decade. Our experience in supporting impact-driven businesses to grow through investment is unmatched. From creating impact investing funds, to supporting the investment readiness of organisations, we have a deep understanding of impact investing, and have supported a number of other organisations to better understand impact investing.
Impact Investment Readiness Programme
2020 recipients Social Labour Supply
The Ākina Impact Investment Readiness Programme (IIRP) provides social enterprises and impact-driven organisations with funding for business, financial, legal and other capacity building support from professional providers to support them in securing investment.
The programme has been running since 2017. Thanks to the generous support of our partners Foundation North, The Tindall Foundation, WEL Energy Trust, Kiwibank, and Rotary Wellington we were able to provide funding of up to $30,000 from a total pool of $275,0000 in 2021.
Sign up to our newsletter, and keep an eye on our opportunities page for future programmes.
Read about the 2022 programme recipients.
Getting ready to take on impact investment
CASE STUDY - HUMANITIX
Humanitix used IIRP funding to set up their successful Australian business in New Zealand. The grant covered the cost of professional services and advice from PWC as well as the legal fees for creating a new New Zealand business structure.
Once this was done they were able to take on investment from a leading Kiwi foundation. Since then Humanitix have continued to grow their revenue, team and impact!
Fund management
Ākina is a partner in the Impact Enterprise Fund (IEF), NZ’s first domestic focused impact investment fund. It is a $8.7 million fund, looking to invest in high growth NZ businesses that deliver tangible societal and/or environmental returns, alongside strong financial returns.
For businesses, this means there is a much needed new source of capital to fuel the growth of both their business and impact. See the Impact Enterprise fund website for more information on the types of businesses the IEF is investing in.
We have experience advising others on the establishment of their own impact investing funds, particularly around effective impact management practices. We are also New Zealand’s only Strategic Partner of the Impact Management Project.
Facilitating investment into businesses that make a positive difference
CASE STUDY - GROUNDED PACKAGING
Through our work with the IEF Ākina enabled investment into Grounded Packaging, providing them with significant funding – alongside other impact co-investors. This enabled them to scale their business and impact. Following investment, the impact of Grounded has increased significantly, and continues to grow. They’ve since launched an online platform for purchasing sustainable packaging and scaled their services.
“Receiving investment from the Impact Enterprise Fund has enabled us to significantly accelerate the growth of our business, and the impact we’re aiming to achieve”