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An Introduction to Breakthrough

Breakthrough is a pioneering Social Investment programme, designed to tackle the management and financial challenges inhibiting the growth of Social Enterprise.

Breakthrough provides strategic support and growth capital to selected and established social enterprises with the ambition and the potential to significantly scale up their business and maximise their social impact.

Breakthrough combines the passion and expertise of its founders, CAN and Permira. CAN and Permira share a mission - to support great businesses - and seek to build on CAN's 10-year track record of supporting social enterprises with Permira's 20-year record of supporting business growth and transformation.

Phil Hope, Former Minister for the Third Sector "I applaud the Breakthrough Social Investment Fund as a visionary innovation that will enable more social enterprises to flourish and improve the lives of countless people. "It is crucial for social enterprises to have access to the right kind of finance when they need and a full range of funding options available to them. The Breakthrough Fund is an innovative model that operates similarly to venture capital investment. It enables social enterprises to access this type of finance along with advice and guidance from established professionals." Oct 2007

Breakthrough's mission is to take the incredible vision, commitment and drive of social enterprises and help them grow into sustainable drivers of social change. Breakthrough's objectives are:

• To showcase and support a portfolio of diverse, established social enterprises to become more sustainable and scale up their social impact
• To overcome both internal and external obstacles to scaling up and support the enterprises to achieve rapid, independent growth
• To deploy permanent, unrestricted capital into the enterprises combined with long-term strategic support (an equity-like approach, rather than debt)
• To raise profile and influence of the Chief Executives and their organisations
• To communicate learnings from Breakthrough to the Social Enterprise Sector and policymakers

Breakthrough does not provide start-up funding, but concentrates its efforts on supporting established social enterprises - with a minimum of three years' trading history and a profitable, scalable business model.