Characteristics and Actors of Impact Investing Ecosystem from the Perspective of Technology Startups

Abstract

Interest in impact investing within technology startup industry is in-creasing. Regardless of the growing interest in impact investing, there is a significant deficiency in research considering practice of impact investing in the field of technology. Also, technology startup perspective on impact investing ecosystem research is novel research stream which and the existing research on topic is very limited. Ecosystem paradigm is widely adopted in economics and management research and adopting it in impact investing research could increase the comprehension of the phenomenon. Again, it may result in better business decisions among startup company management and foster impact investments allocated to startup industry. This case study explores Finnish impact investing ecosystem emphasizing on technology startups and aims to fill the gap between the current practice and the academic research. Study was conducted as a multiple case study, and the main data acquisition method was a semi-structured interview. Case study includes in total of ten organizations operating in different roles within the Finnish impact ecosystem. The main contribution of this study is to describe and review the main characteristics and actors of the Finnish impact investing ecosystem. The study identifies in total of 22 impact investing ecosystem actors particularly for startup companies and amplifies previous views of the impact investing ecosystem research. Further, findings indicate that public sector organizations are prominent actors within Finnish impact investing ecosystem, and that there are variety of collaborating public and private actors in the ecosystem.