The Big Lottery Fund and Social Investment Scotland (SIS) are delighted to announce that Scotland’s first accelerator programme for early stage social enterprises will be delivered by Firstport in partnership with Heriot-Watt University and Imani Financial Solutions.

At the end of 2013 the Fund ran an open procurement process to select a delivery partner for this new initiative. Firstport submitted an excellent proposal that demonstrated the national  reach of their consortium and their ability to find exciting early stage social enterprises  through innovative campaigns, provide wraparound support, administer and manage grant   unding, and actively engage with investor networks to complete individual funding packages  with repayable or other forms of finance.

The Big Lottery Fund and SIS are cornerstone investors in the accelerator programme. We believe that through an intensive programme of combined non-financial and financial support this initiative will accelerate the potential of ambitious early stage social enterprises and stimulate a pipeline of investible ideas in Scotland.

Further information on the launch of the accelerator programme will be provided on Firstport’s website soon.