SocialFareSeed

Laura Orestano is a seasoned professional in the industry. She serves as a social innovation expert for the EU Commission and has been the social economy consultant for Invitalia. She is also the co-founder of Turin City for Women and is a Board and FAC member of ActionAid International Italia Onlus.

In an exclusive interview with Startupcity Europe, she shared invaluable insights concerning the industry's future, the ensuing challenges and the possible solutions.

What are your key roles and responsibilities in your current organization?

I currently serve as the CEO of SocialFare, a business conglomerate comprising SocialFare and SocialFare Seed. The former is the centre for social innovation that accelerates startups, while the latter is an investment firm that invests in the startups that the former accelerates. Incidentally, I am also the president and the general manager of SocialFare Seed.

Our investment approach is based on the positive impact factor the startup intentionally seeks to pursue while deploying entrepreneurial innovation. Despite the discernible risks involved In investing, besides its dependence on the behavior of investors, we have recorded good performance in our investments. 

The challenge for us as a company lies in balancing providing innovative solutions to social problems and adhering to our code. Additionally, there is the obligation to make the startuppers understand that the combination of good technology and digital innovation is what counters societal challenges worldwide.

What are some of the measures you have taken to mitigate some of the challenges and pain points the industry faces today?

As far as societal challenges are concerned, the matrix largely depends upon the solutions implemented. For instance, we are required to answer certain leading indicators. These include questions regarding the extent to which the proposed solution aligns with the startup’s mission, the innovative nature of the solution, and whether the team involved is dedicated and domain skilled. I would like to clarify that by innovation, and I do not mean disruptive innovations but rather novel approaches to handling and overcoming the predicaments.

“It is crucial to strike the perfect balance between novel solutions, money, and potential impact. In other words, we need to be brave and sit on the same side of the table with our startuppers.” 

Apart from this, contextual indicators also refer to the limits of our contextual knowledge. As an accelerator for impact investing, it is quite natural that we are not prepared to evaluate all possible options, consequently engendering the need to specialize. The contextual indicators, thus, showcase the limits of our specialization and the plans for the health of experts and advisors. In brief, they aid us in affording the risk of investing in startups.

Considering all the potential transformations and disruptions, how do you envision the industry's future?

We are currently observing efforts to foster social innovation and the impact of the economy both at the institutional level (like the European Commission) and the local level (like local government policies). The reason behind this initiative is the existence of consolidated evidence, indicating that impact economy and social innovation might represent a more inclusive and equitable model of economy.

This is accompanied by the fact that an increasing number of investors are looking at their portfolios, not merely with an expectation of good results or returns. Instead, they are equally concerned about the role their portfolios or startups play in the progress of society. The younger generation is more sensitive to societal and environmental changes. It seeks investors who can assess and evaluate their impact model, statement, and potential outcomes as part of the return on their investment.

Further, recent data indicate that the impact investing sector is growing rapidly. This is primarily owing to the institutional efforts and the willingness of investors to espouse the impact factor lens.

Given the institutional efforts, the trend of growth observed in impact investing, and the young startuppers sensitive to the planet’s health and social equality, the future is certainly bright.

Would you like to mention some of your recent projects and the technology and process elements you have leveraged to make the project successful?

We are attempting to build a database through which one can access the success stories of the different startups and enable the founders to contact potential investors. This kind of infrastructure is needed at the European level, and currently, we are building a prototype of the same at the Italian level.

Apart from this, we are working towards integrating our investment process with data technology to understand whether startups can get data intelligence as part of equity investment.

What would be your advice to fellow peers and other leaders working in the industry?

 My advice would be to remember that the most important factor is your behavior and interaction with the startuppers. In this specific relationship between the investor and the startupper, the difference is largely made by the amount of courage we have and, to that end, how far we are willing to proceed.

Undoubtedly, it is not wise to remain oblivious to the potential risks when considering innovative solutions. Instead, striking the perfect balance between novel solutions, money, and potential impact is crucial. In other words, we need to be brave and sit on the same side of the table with our startuppers.