A huge thank you to everyone at Allia for an immensely insightful and enjoyable LiA project. Working with such a passionate team, engaging with an incredible range of founders and being at the heart of the startup ecosystem in London was a true privilege.

Over the past six weeks, I have gained invaluable experience in the fields of VC and entrepreneurship. My principal project was centered on impact management; given that Allia works with a range of social enterprises and tech-for-good businesses, the organization would greatly benefit from having a tool that captures the impact they themselves have on the startups they help in their accelerator programs and the indirect effect this has on people, place and planet. The core priorities of the project were to establish a platform and roadmap for impact KPIs to be tracked in a twofold manner; for Allia to view the value add of their programmes on the companies in their accelerators as well as the ESG and impact data created by startups themselves. In this way, qualitative and quantitative data for programme evaluation and feedback would be streamlined and Allia can view the impact of its scaling startups by viewing the evolution of ventures’ ESG impact metrics one, three and six months post graduation and beyond.

Ideally, this platform could not just serve a data tracking purpose, but centralize the organizational management of accelerator programmes too. In other words, for accelerator events and meetings the Allia staff could log notes, attendance and observations in a more efficient way. This would be beneficial for the mentoring aspect of the accelerators for staff to manage relationships as the companies go through thresholds of the programs. Moreover, as Allia itself grows and works with an ever increasing number of ventures across more and more sectors, Allia could build systems for tracking the impact of ventures operating in certain sectors, perhaps through a library of metrics linked to specific outcomes. For the founders of ventures, the challenge of impact tracking could be ameliorated. Each founder could have access to personal, ESG and administrative data dashboard from the running of their own businesses and that related to their work on Allia’s programs. Furthermore, Allia is a community-centric organization which builds strong networks through its activities. So, having a platform that could keep alumni in discussion and engaged with respect to updates on their sectors, any regulation and opportunities would further cement this.

From conducting discussions and analysis with seed stage and pre-seed founders, to attending demo days and accelerator program sessions, fire-side talks and meetings with angel investors, founders, family offices, other VCs and more, I have learned an inordinate amount. The Allia team and the ventures they work with are truly inspiring. Their passion for creating innovative products that disrupt industries is infectious. Having such a deep insight into the world of impact ventures has amplified my interest in tech-for-good and social enterprise. I am incredibly grateful for the charismatic, inclusive and ambitious Allia Impact team Andrew, Isobel, Kathryn, Marina, Max, Iain and Claire. Thank you once again to Allia for welcoming me as part of your team and community. I will take the knowledge and skills I have learned with me well into the future.