Project: 1991 Ventures
State of development: Current
Stage of development: Final negotiations
Type of instrument — Impact Bond: No; Outcomes Fund: Yes; Social Impact Incentives (SIINC): No; Social Impact Guarantee: No; Payment-by-results (no pre-financing): No; Technical Assistance and Market-building program: No; Other: 
Rationale for using outcome-based finance: 1991 Ventures will be launched as impact fund focused on technology in Ukraine. The innovative model is represented by two worlds blended together -- 1991 Accelerator with local ecosystem and government partners located in Kyiv will be bridged with 1991 Ventures fund located in London with partners representing the City of London's capital. Altogether this will have a powerful synergetic effect. 1991 Ventures will be sustainable as he fundraising will be complete and the structure of management fees will keep the fund self-sustainable for at least 10 years and will keep the impact-focus for the entire lifespan of the fund. 
Key challenges to launch: 1991 Accelerator was always focusing on startups that make life better -- united donor blood centres, inclusive transportation, AI to spot fake news. But this was never structured to comply with impact frameworks and existing standards that are appreciated by investors. Currently as we're at the edge of launching a fund to invest into impact tech startups, we need to develop and establish an ecosystem of startup and investment criteria, evaluation process, impact progress tracking. This need includes even the smallest, but very important details, e.g. vocabulary and semantics for public campaign that the fund is planning to run. 
Social/developmental challenge: Venture capital historically in Ukraine has very commercial focus. 1991 Accelerator as the elect board member of Ukrainian Venture Capital Association has a lot of observations, as these indicators went even lower with the war at the gate. There's no expertise in the country about creating impact frameworks such as outcome-based investment fund. Even though we've created a full fund's structure for 1991 in the UK with an impactful mission, the fund is still lacking the entire framework of SDG focus and outcome-based investing.
Expected intervention model: The project will help to design and launch 1991 Ventures London-based $20M seed venture outcome fund which invests in mission-driven Ukrainian founders. The fund builds on the legacy of donor-funded 1991 Accelerator in Ukraine, but will add up with impact-focused frameworks embedded into the design of the fund itself and all future 1991 acceleration programs. 1991 Ventures will build on the existing brand of 1991 and will take leadership in the region to demonstrate the importance and viability of impact focus for venture capital and startups. Developed frameworks will help to shape the focus of donor-funded programs that usually launch 30+ new startups a year. With over 200 alumni startup and $10M+ of attracted funding within 5 years, we expect similar performance and results of this intervention.
Policy sectors — Employment and private sector development: Yes; Education: No; Social protection: No; Criminal justice: No; Health: No; Agriculture: No; Environment and climate change: No; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: No; Energy: No; Humanitarian: No; Early Childhood Education: No; Other: 
Primary SDG goal: 8
Country income classification of beneficiaries — Low-income: No; Lower-middle-income: No; Upper-middle-income: Yes; High-income: No
Notes: Data for this pipeline project was last updated in August 2023
Delivery location: Ukrain