What Is It?

imece impact is a program led by imece for accelerating start-ups that produce social and ecological benefits during their growth phases and it aims to render the social impact created by these start-ups visible. The main goal of this program is to direct the start-ups that get development support to investment processes through the right evaluations. For this purpose, we offer the start-ups an impact accelerator program with the main partnership of Zorlu Holding, the information partnership of Business Call to Action supported by UNDP, the strategic partnership of the Business Council for Sustainable Development Turkey (BCSD Turkey), and the investment partnership of Startup Wise Guys.

Who Is It For?

The first term call to action of imece impact was for start-ups in the “Quality Education” and “Circular Economy” fields that:

  • already have a product, have an innovation or technology in its solution, have made their first sale, and have investment goals and global expansion targets.
  • have client base and scalable income models, have scalable impact models. 

 

We received 90 applications for this call, 28 of which focus on the global goal of circular economy, 27 on quality education, 16 on industrial innovation and infrastructure, 11 on gender equality, and 8 on good health and well-being. You can find the start-ups chosen for this period below. imece impact Acceleration Program will continue between November 2020 and April 2021.

What Do We Offer?

Within the scope of this program, we aim to render the start-ups evaluable and visible in the eyes of investors, partners, and clients with respect to how they approach the challenges, the model of impact they create through their solutions, and the potentials that they carry. We offer customized support according to the needs of start-ups during the program period:

Impact measurement and reporting

Business development and private sector matchmaking

6-month access to the mentors

Customized 1-on-1 training and entrepreneurial coaching

Communication support and promotional content in text and video formats

Purchases of services in marketing, law, product development areas

When?

Application Period: You can submit your applications via F6S platform from 13 October to 20 November 2020. The applications are extended from November 15th to 20th.

Impact Acceleration Program: November 2020-April 2021

Zorlu Holding
Main Partner

Business Call To Action
Knowledge Partner

SKD Türkiye
Strategic Partner

Startup Wise Guys
Investment Partner

Calls to Action

Circular Production & Responsible Consumption

What steps should we take over the next 10 years to create a realistic response to the climate crisis? The climate crisis exists due to the way we produce food and generate energy as well as our   fast consumption habits; there is a demand for unnecessarily extra production, and non-recyclable waste. Nevertheless, we need to address the societal, environmental, and economical issues on an interconnected approach through the responses or the new circular solutions which will transform linear production systems. Solutions can make a change in the supply chain is crucial to make a change. We invite start-ups operating in this field to address the issue in a more inclusive perspective and increase their impact.

Quality Education

The education system needs to focus on bringing in analytical thinking capabilities and raising people who can question, people who find their bliss through exploration so that more individuals who can adapt to the present-day with high social interaction skills are introduced to society. Due to the rapid transition to remote learning with the start of the pandemic, inequalities in technology became more profound while the students’ access to education declined. Various types of learning requirements, especially the needs of the students in disadvantaged groups, could not be met. The shortcomings are evident not only to the extent of general education but also by means of lifelong learning. Solutions aiming to meet these needs, especially in the fields of digital literacy and professional development should emerge. We invite the start-ups who are operating in the education sector to approach the quality education issue from a well-rounded perspective and to take a more effective role by expanding the impact they have created.

imece impact start-ups

AnadOlive
Circular Economy

AnadOlive, acting with the philosophy of zero waste, provides a solution to process waste for the olive sector. They process and dry the process waste from the olive production without spoiling its structure and naturalness and turn it into a ‘’Powder Olive’’ which could be used in different formats. 

BPREG Natural Fiber Composites
Circular Economy

Offering an alternative to composites made of synthetic materials such as glass and carbon, B-PREG develops advanced composite materials that are lightweight, have high mechanical performance and low environmental impact from fiber plants such as flax and hemp.

Kodris
Quality Education

Kodris aims to teach coding to children between the ages of 7 and 16. While increasing critical thinking, algorithm building skills and creativity in this age group, Kodris teaches Python, the most preferred programming language for beginners.

Laska
Circular Economy

Laska, which established its business model with environmentally friendly production and circular economy policies, upcycles waste tires with its patented technology. It produces high value-added and clean products such as biofuels and carbon black from waste tires.

Manibux
Quality Education

Manibux, offers a prepaid card for pocket money management and an application for tracking it to children between the ages of 8 and 18 and their families. Which becomes a tool to teach financial literacy skills and offer solutions to problems related to giving and saving pocket money.

The Academys
Quality Education

Providing e-sports training, The Academys aims to raise qualified people who will direct and add value to the gaming industry. They work on announcer training, raising content producers, creating and raising brand values, production and direction.

Tospaa
Quality Education

Focusing on the widespread use of coding education, Tospaa creates various educational open-source coding tools and a board game for the use of students, teachers and families, especially in schools without computer classrooms. Their aim is to tackle the lack of concrete material for comprehending the coding logic.

 

Previous Programs

Support Program

We are introducing imece impact as an accelerator program that focuses on social impact. It is to function as the new format of our Enterprise Support Program in which we have adopted the incubator role for the last 3 years. Over the entire course of the Support Program, we have assisted social entrepreneurs  in developing their capacities and discovering opportunities. During the last3 years, we have disbursed more than 1 Million TL grants to 43 different social start-ups and social projects.  Support program has delivered over 1.000 hours of mentorship plus 900 hours of training sessions with 232 mentors. You can review the projects details below.

What Do The Previous imece Incubator Participants Say?

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the impact accelerator?

It is a program in which a start-up’s products/services go through an evaluation process that involves impact measurement/reporting utilizing questions about the scope of generated (positive or negative) outcomes/outputs such as “for whom/what”, “how much/many”, “to what extend/size” therefore the next steps for growth get planned and the start-up gets support throughout its growth process.

How does the imece impact program progress?

We will be realizing this program with the activities that are to be carried out with different partners, the community that we have created, mentors that we partner with, and the content that we produce. During the program, we offer start-ups impact measurement and reporting, promotional content, access to a mentor network for product and business development, or technical matters plus training and workshops. We intend to introduce the required skills and the competencies to the start-ups and move their capacity and the opportunities they can find to the next level through these efforts.

What is impact investment?

Investments carried out to create positive and measurable social/environmental impact along with financial returns are defined as impact investment. As the number of investors who consider “social impact” as an important benchmark for their investments grows, and such social impact-focused financing models become more preferable, the impact investment market is expected to grow significantly.

What are impact measurement and impact reporting?

Impact measurement and impact reporting consist of studies that allow start-ups to embody their social and environmental impact from the outcomes of their activities. It is necessary to be able to prove the impact of start-ups relying on substantial data analysis during their business development and growth phases or in their process of building relationships with potential impact investors. Hence, to be able to measure their social/environmental impact is a requirement. Impact reports are prepared by synthesizing the values and technological opportunities of the social start-ups with the arguments emerging as a result of the impact measurement.

Why are impact measurement and impact reporting important?

Impact measurement and impact reporting consist of studies that allow start-ups to embody their social and environmental impact from the outcomes of their activities. It is necessary to be able to prove the impact of start-ups relying on substantial data analysis during their business development and growth phases or in their process of building relationships with potential impact investors. Hence, to be able to measure their social/environmental impact is a requirement. Impact reports are prepared by synthesizing the values and technological opportunities of the social start-ups with the arguments emerging as a result of the impact measurement.

Observing the achievements considering the impact makes the enterprise visible on a local and global scale. imece accompanies start-ups through all the steps during their problem solving and growth phases while enabling impact investors to distinguish how these start-ups offer powerful solutions for the problems that they handle and the target audiences that they reach. The reports prepared in Turkish and English allow start-ups to express themselves clearly. These reports make it all more understandable about what kind of impact and transformation these start-ups have achieved with the implemented solutions. These reports demonstrate the potential of the solved problem in Turkey and the global market. In addition to that, imece offers a narrative on the potential impact of the enterprises in the published impact reports, and points up the problems they can solve with their growth potential helping start-ups model the effects of their impact and take new steps. All of these points listed above create more access opportunities for start-ups so they can reach local and global networks during the program and after graduating from it, provide the possibility to develop various partnerships and open the doors to new collaborations. The start-ups get the chance to equip themselves for new relationships with ecosystem actors from B Corp companies to incubators of different sizes.

How will the impact reporting process run through the Impact Lab platform with Business Call To Action supported by UNDP ?

Impact Lab is the impact reporting support platform that the Business Call to Action Team offers to start-ups and organizations. The platform and the partnership process consists of four modules that will be analysing how your start-up serves to which of the Sustainable Development Goals, finding answers to questions such as how much, for whom, to which extent etc and the associated risks in this respect while revealing data indicators pointing up these plus beneficiary experiences. In this process, the activities, outputs and impacts of the start-up & organization will be reported through the impact value chain/impact modeling.

What are the conditions for eligibility?

Evaluation and the eligibility of the applications will be based on the scope of the ideas and whether they include the sub-themes defined in the given period, how they relate to the challenges, advancement levels of the start-ups, the scale of their impact potentials, sustainability of the business and the income models, the competencies of the teams and their expertise areas and how imece can provide the most added value. After the preliminary evaluation, the remaining 8–10 initiatives hold one-on-one meetings with the Evaluation Board and during these sessions, the intention is to get to know the teams, their products or services better and to make new assessments within the frame of the criteria, and then final teams are determined accordingly. In addition to the imece team, contacts from the founding partners of imece, ATÖLYE,S360, and Zorlu Holding will be present in the Evaluation Board along with the contacts from the social entrepreneurship ecosystem.

How long will the program last, how much time will the enterprises involved need to allocate?

The program will continue from November 2020 to April 2021. In this process, it will be sufficient to spare half a day a week. Attendance will be required for the mentoring sessions. Processes such as training, mentoring sessions and workshops will be customized according to the needs of your team, and the exact time you need to allocate will be determined based on that.

What is the connection between imece Support Program and imece impact program?

As of 2020, we have transformed the Support Program that we started in 2016 and developed into imece impact “impact accelerator” in 2020 to provide the needed support for the start-ups that focus on impact. With this innovative program that meets the demands and needs of the changing and developing ecosystem, we wanted to create a space for the start-ups in growth phase, a space where they can move forward by seeing their impact.

In November-January, you will need to allocate time to compile data & insights for impact reporting. This time may vary depending on the level of your organization and the data availability. The Business Call to Action team will prepare your impact report in light of the information you have gathered in February-April.

What kind of support has imece provided to the start-ups in the past? How many start-ups have been supported so far?

imece brings together start-ups that develop human and society focused and environmentally conscious products and services with resources such as funding, mentoring, access to local and global networks, and office facilities that aim generating social benefits throughout its Support Programs. In 3 years, 232 mentors supported 43 social start-ups with over 2000 hours of training. A total of 1 million TL grants were provided to 10 of the start-ups. In addition to imece’s own approaches and investments, the start-ups we have worked with generated a huge impact in their own sectors and accessed a wide network. Start-ups that are involved in the process but cannot qualify for the finals are kept within imece’s communication network, allowing them to collaborate to develop solution ideas.

 

For your other questions, you can contact us at impact@imece.com