Accelerate & Scale Solutions

Each successful innovation has a unique story and their needs evolve from the point of an idea to a successful start-up to an organisation that can serve millions of people worldwide. Building a sustainable enterprise is never easy and innovations that aim to address a major social or environmental issue face even a bigger challenge.

Impact Hub and WWF aim to provide support to high-potential innovations throughout their journey. While having a flexible approach that suits the needs of start-ups in various themes and local contexts, we have clustered the support we provide to three phases.

In the incubation phase, we work with interested individuals or groups and inspire formation of new ideas and potential solutions to a given issue. We then help them build it into a “Minimum Viable Product,” let them test it with potential customers and incorporate their brand new start-up.

In the acceleration phase, we usually work with start-ups that already have a prototype product and first paying customers. In this phase the support becomes more tailored as we work on the specific needs of each start-up – strengthening their business model, developing marketing and sales, working on their investment pitch and connecting them with investors.

In the scaling phase, we identify and work with innovative companies who have a proven solution that has demonstrated positive impact, have also managed to build a sustainable business model and have an ambition to scale their reach to many more beneficiaries and places. We provide a highly tailored support in developing a scaling plan, getting their organization ready to scale, and finally facilitate access to new markets, strategic partners and investors.

If you are considering to run a program, you have an option of building on a ready-made format or jointly design a tailor-made program according to your focus and needs.

Formats

• Fellowship Program – a highly successful incubation program that was jointly developed by Impact Hub and WWF 5 years ago and has incubated 115 impact driven start-ups in 15 countries since.
• Scaling Program – one of the first programs in the world focused on providing tailored support to successful and proven innovations in scaling their reach and impact internationally. So far 100 ventures in 8 countries have been supported.
• Design a new program – WWF and Impact Hub have also designed brand new programs (e.g. Entrepreneurs for Nature in the Netherlands). Here is a thorough overview of the modules that can be used to build a tailored program.