A new initiative is underway to connect investors and entrepreneurs in an effort to solve local community challenges brought on by the pandemic.
Aided by a $950,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Association’s SPRINT Challenge, Dallas-based impact investor Champion Impact Capital has launched Spark North Texas, an investment platform aimed at funding ideas that will better the lives of local residents.
“Everybody's looking for deal flow, everybody wants to find projects that they can fund,” said Michelle Corson, Champion founder and CEO. “Having a central repository for that, that is pretty sophisticated is something that everyone's excited about.”
Using a “matchmaking” algorithm, the Spark North Texas platform works by first matching entrepreneurs with the type of financial structure best suited to what they are trying to accomplish, while connecting investors – who fill out a questionnaire before joining – to the types of deals they’re looking for based on things like length of investment, exit strategy and return size. Already, investors including the North Texas Angel Network, the Southwest Angel Network and Capital Factory have signaled commitments to fund projects on the Spark platform.
“One of the neat things about platform that we've put together is that groups like (angel networks) can create special networks within the platform,” Corson said. “Those groups can collaborate with each other, take a look at deals together and monitor the deal progression.”
From startups to nonprofits, Corson said applications are open to entrepreneurs from any industry and business type. However, due to the stipulations of the grant funding, submissions need to be technology-driven and address a safety, health or economic need to help with local pandemic recovery efforts. While the impacts of the organizations’ work need to be focused on North Texas, they don’t need to be based in the region.
Ideally, Corson said Spark hopes to onboard about 50 projects seeking funding and around 100 investors onto the platform, with the goal of having at least 10 projects funded when the investment period ends in Oct. 2022. Applications for entrepreneurs looking to list on Spark close Nov. 24. The platform will open to investors on Jan. 10.
In addition to the investment matching platform, Spark is also launching a donor-advised fund in partnership with nonprofit financial services firm ImpactAssets, in an effort to allow non-accredited investors to participate.
“It's very complementary with what (investors) are looking for, they've been really trying to find a way to get women-founded organizations or Black and brown founders to get more capital and access to investors,” Corson said. “(Spark) will be something that will help with that.”
Based on the success of the Spark pilot, Corson said the organization will look to onboard new projects and investors in the future. The announcement of the launch of the Spark platform comes amid other efforts in the region, like Mayor Eric Johnson’s Task Force on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which called for increased access to education, networking and capital for underrepresented founders in the region. Corson noted that it also comes as impact investing has been on the rise.
Corson launched Champion Impact Capital in 2011. She’s also the founder of On the Road Companies, a portfolio of vehicle-focused enterprises and nonprofits.
“I'm hoping that we're going to get as good of a response that we’re expecting, based on the initial conversations that we had with people, and that it can live on past the grant period,” Corson said. “If we get the kind of response that we think we're going to, the platform can go on and be used by a lot of different investor groups.”
