about us

  • We want to see the power of innovation and technology used to solve major social problems, bringing the benefits of innovation to everyone in society. We help to do this by investing in ventures with inclusive and scalable innovations that are run by outstanding entrepreneurs. We are an experienced team of sector experts, venture capitalists, impact investors and evaluators backed by a strong, innovative institution - Nesta.

  • Committed to supporting outstanding entrepreneurs, we bring the skills, networks and resources of our team and from across Nesta, to support social ventures to deliver on their mission. We are currently seeking innovations that tackle the major challenges faced by older people, children and communities in the UK.

    • sustainable communities

    We invest in innovations that help improve the sustainability of communities in the UK

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    children & young people

    We invest in innovations that improve educational attainment, employability and overall well-being of young people in the UK

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    ageing well

    We invest in innovations that help improve the health and well-being of older people in the UK

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    the team

    Nathan Elstub

    Nathan Elstub

    Nathan joined Nesta in 2015 as Chief Investment Officer with overall responsibility for the organisation's investment activities.  

     

    Biography

     

    Nathan has been involved in venture capital and private equity investment in high growth businesses for almost 20 years and has successfully backed companies in a wide range of sectors and from start-up stage through to buy-outs.  Originally an engineer, Nathan is a Chartered Accountant and previously worked at Arthur Andersen, Barclays Private Equity and Social Finance.  

     

    Nathan is also an advisory board member and founder mentor of Emerge Education, a leading ed-tech accelerator, on the investment committee of the Shared Lives impact investment fund, an active business angel and non-executive director of a number of businesses.  

     

     

    Manish Miglani

    Manish Miglani

    Manish joined Nesta in 2015 as an Investment Director and works on the fund's investments across sectors.

    Biography

    Manish has been involved in venture capital and private equity since 2005, both as an investor and a consultant, and has worked at Sovereign Capital, Terra Firma Capital Partners and Aureos Capital (now part of Abraaj). At Sovereign Capital, his main focus was on Education and Healthcare. He's been involved in Astrum , GSM, Creare and Lifetime investment as well as bolt-on investments for Eden Futures and World Class Learning. Prior to that, Manish was a strategy consultant at Accenture and a marketing manager at Colgate Palmolive.

    Manish holds an MBA from London Business School, a Masters in Management from the Indian Institute of Management and a BSc Honours in Electronics from the University of Delhi.

     

    Isabel Newman

    Isabel Newman

    Isabel joined Nesta in October 2013 and is an Impact Investment manager in the Nesta Impact Investments team.

    She supports all stages of the investment process from initial appraisal through to deal execution and portfolio management, with a specific focus on the fund’s Children and Young People theme.

    Biography

    Isabel has a background in social investment and international grant making, having previously worked at CAF Venturesome and Comic Relief.

    She holds a BA in Geography from Newcastle University and an MSc in Globalisation and Development from SOAS.

    Isabel is also a Trustee of The Midi Music Company, a south London based charity that inspires children and young people to get into the music and creative industries.

    Helen Gironi

    Helen Gironi

    Helen joined Nesta Impact Investments in January 2016 as Investment Director, and works across the fund’s investment themes making investments and managing the portfolio.

    Helen started her career in venture capital in 2002, when she helped manage a new fund investing in small businesses in east London.  She subsequently joined The Capital Fund, a £50 million venture capital fund backing fast-growing SMEs in Greater London. She has successfully backed companies in retail, technology, marketing and support services. She later sat on the board of Octopus Apollo and Protected VCT vehicles and has advised Finance South East on investing its Enterprise M3 Growth Fund.

    She studied Chemistry at Bristol University and started her career working for Nomura and HSBC working on share offerings and flotations of companies from Europe, Middle East and Africa.

    Lucy Heady

    Lucy Heady

    Lucy has over ten years of experience of measuring social impact in both the UK and internationally. As Evidence, Measurement and Evaluation Manager at the Children's Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) she has designed and managed a variety of evaluations of public and private sector initiatives working with partners including the World Bank, Government of Kenya and Sesame Workshop. Before moving to CIFF Lucy was the Senior Economist at Building Markets where she measured job creation and private sector growth in Afghanistan, Haiti and Liberia. Prior to this she was Head of Measurement at NPC, working with charities to measure their impact in a variety of sectors from crime prevention to violence against women.

    She holds an MSc in Economics from Birkbeck College and a PhD in Theoretical Physics from the University of Cambridge.

    our portfolio

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    Arbor Education

    Helping schools learn from their data to improve learning outcomes for children

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    Cogbooks

    An adaptive learning platform that delivers personalised leaning of educational content.

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    Ffrees

    A unique type of current account that helps families to save as they spend

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    FutureGov

    A digital product company that works with local government to make better public services through the use of elegantly designed technology

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    Synopsis

    A fast-growing healthcare technology platform.

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    GetMyFirstJob

    An innovative online platform that helps match young people to apprenticeships

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    Oomph! Wellness Limited

    A social enterprise improving the health and quality of life of older adults through innovative group exercise classes, such as ‘chair cheerleading’

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    Reconnections

    A Social Impact Bond addressing loneliness among older people

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    Third Space Learning

    One-to-one maths support to raise attainment and confidence

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    Sumdog

    Games-based learning platform helping to engage students and accelerate learning

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    Applied

    A recruitment platform that helps employers hire fairer, faster and retain hires for longer

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    past portfolio

    AiMedia

    A for-profit social enterprise that provides live captioning in schools and universities to support students learning.

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    Digital Assess

    Digital Assess supplies innovative technology to support learning at all levels – including formal education, e-learning, vocational and workplace training – and helps to better prepare learners with the skills demanded by modern workplaces.

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    Movellas

    A new online story sharing community aimed at improving literacy skills amongst teenagers

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    what we look for

    We invest in ventures with high impact, scalable innovations that are run by outstanding entrepreneurs. We are actively looking for ventures which are:

    • outcome-focussed
    • innovative
    • evidence-based
    • inclusive
    • scalable
    • financially sustainable
    • outstanding leadership

    • We invest in product and services which have a positive effect on one or more or our target outcomes.

      Read more about our target outcomes

    • We invest in ventures which aim to have an impact beyond what exists already, through innovation in product, process, business model or financing structure

    • We invest in ventures that can articulate a credible theory of change and we support ventures to implement an ongoing evaluation programme to further evidence the impact of their products or services on people’s lives.

      Read more about our approach to impact and evaluation

    • We invest for public benefit which means the products and service we invest in need to be accessible, inclusive and affordable to all.

      Read more about our approach to investing for public benefit. 

    • We invest in ventures which are able to grow their reach to a significant proportion of people in the target group, or society overall.

    • We invest in ventures with sustainable financial models capable of producing a return on our investment.

    • We want to work with outstanding entrepreneurs who are committed to using their skills to address big social challenges.

    what we look for in an investment

    find us

    address

    58 Victoria Embankment, London, EC4Y 0DS