Platform provides solutions for public and private sector organisations to measure, monitor and maximise social impact

(London, UK) — Social Value Portal, the UK’s leading platform for capturing and analysing social impact, has announced that it has raised £3m from Beringea, the transatlantic venture capital firm.

Social Value Portal provides a solution for public and private sector organisations to measure, monitor and benchmark the social value they generate. Its platform captures both financial and non-financial data to measure the ‘social value’ generated by an organisation and its supply chain and monitor and analyse the results.

The need for accurate reporting of social impact is at the forefront of government and boardroom agendas. In the UK, the Social Value Act of 2012 required the public sector to consider social value in procurement processes. In the private sector, shareholders are increasingly demanding that ESG reporting becomes the norm for large corporations. In 2018, Larry Fink, CEO of Blackrock, the $7tn fund manager and one of the most influential shareholders globally, informed chief executives of the world’s largest public companies that “to prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society.”

With public and private organisations stating the need for an urgent focus on measuring and maximising impact, Social Value Portal was founded in 2014 to provide a tool that could precisely and consistently report social value throughout the economy. The platform is today used by more than 100 organisations spanning the public, private, and third sectors, including Legal & General, UBS, Barclays, Balfour Beatty, Sheffield City Council, Manchester City Council, and Bristol City Council.

Guy Battle, founder and CEO of Social Value Portal, is a sustainability expert with more than 25 years of experience in unlocking social value. He has played a pivotal role in the adoption and expansion of the Social Value Act, including advising Hazel Blears MP on a comprehensive review of the legislation in 2014 that delivered a series of cross-party recommendations to the Cabinet Office.

Social Value Portal currently supports over 2000 projects to identify and quantify social value. The platform assesses the key outcomes and metrics for projects and the communities in which they operate and provides a constant analysis of these measurements across supply chains, procurement, and project management. This rigorous measurement and monitoring has unlocked over £2bn in social and economic value for customers of Social Value Portal.

Social Value Portal will use this investment to enable the further development of its platform as well as expanding its sales and marketing in order to scale the use of its measurement tools across business, government and investors and to unlock millions in social value.

Guy Battle, founder and CEO of Social Value Portal, commented:

“We are delighted that Beringea have joined us on our journey to help our customers maximise their social value. Their investment will allow us to develop our ground-breaking platform to the next level of growth and success, opening up new markets and new opportunities.”

Maria Wagner, Investment Director at Beringea, commented:

“Recent years have seen a focus on the ‘E’ and ‘G’ of ESG reporting. Now, the ‘S’ is gaining more prominence, and its importance has been further enhanced by the Covid crisis. Social Value Portal is uniquely positioned to take advantage of these tailwinds, offering a standardised methodology to quantify social impact on a digital platform, which has been a challenge for organisations in the past. We are looking forward to working with Guy and his team to expand this pioneering solution to new levels.”