impak Finance closes a $1.1 million angel financing round - Claude Chagnon, Didier Kuhn, Michel Lozeau and Daniel Paillé join its Board.
impak Finance closes $1.1m from Anges Québec, Anges Québec Capital, and well known figures from the investment world in Canada and France.
Montreal, Canada, August 14th 2018 - impak Finance, the first fintech to launch a marketplace to make buying from businesses with a positive social impact easy and rewarding, announces today the closing of a $1.1 million angel financing round with Anges Québec, Anges Québec Capital, as well as private investors from Canada and France. The company is also proud to announce that seasoned investors Claude Chagnon from the Fondation Chagnon, Didier Kuhn from the French ride sharing app BlablaCar, Michel Lozeau, a former National Bank of Canada executive, and former Quebec cabinet minister Daniel Paillé, have joined its Board.
“The support we are getting from well known entrepreneurs and investors is a demonstration of the enthusiasm behind our project: to channel capital towards enterprises that take to heart the welfare of people and the environment, while generating a profit. Business as a force for good, an alternative to the traditional way of doing business, has increasingly been gaining ground in Canada and worldwide”, says Paul Allard, co-founder and CEO of impak Finance. “impak allows people to use their money for social and environmental good”, he adds.
“The impak platform is innovating, highly disruptive and will federate the forces behind the impact economy, a sector showing 20% yearly growth”, adds François Gilbert, CEO of Anges Québec Capital. “Furthermore, we are proud to work shoulder to shoulder with the impak Finance team and bring fresh and new solutions to the pressing social and environmental issues our society faces.”
A marketplace dedicated to responsible consumption
Impak Finance has created impak: an application and a marketplace (www.impak.eco) that facilitate and reward responsible purchases from impact enterprises. Individuals and professional buyers alike will be able to find qualified like-minded impact businesses able to provide them with the products and services they need. Furthermore, they will be rewarded for everyone of those purchases with impak Coins, a crypto-currency they will be able to use within the ecosystem.
Also, businesses that join the ecosystem will benefit from reduced transaction fees, an additional storefront to a highly motivated client-base, a reward program for which they do not have to pay, rewards in impak Coin for their own purchases in the marketplace, and a complete real-time report of their impact. As of today, 10,000 account holders have suggested more than 40,000 enterprises they would like to transact with.
About impak Finance
Impak Finance is the fintech that seeks to channel capital towards the social impact economy and bolster its growth. It has developed an application that makes responsible buying easy and rewarding through the usage of the impak Coin, the first digital currency dedicated to the social impact economy. The impak users – individuals and professional buyers – have access to a marketplace of qualified social impact enterprises. Each time they buy, they are rewarded in impak Coins while having traceability on their social impact thanks to the blockchain. Impak Finance has the support of several investors from the social impact and FinTech space, including Claude Chagnon, (Quebec philanthropist), Didier Kuhn (Board member of BlaBlaCar and Bankin), Michel Lozeau (former EVP at National Bank of Canada), and Daniel Paillé (former Québec cabinet minister). www.impak.eco
About Anges Québec
Anges Québec is the largest group of angel investors in Québec. Its mission is to allow its more than 200 members to make profitable investments. The members of Ange Québec have invested to date over $75 M in the Québec economy, totalling over 175 investments in more than 102 innovating companies. Thanks to its professional development center, Anges Québec supports its members in their ongoing acquisition of new skills and knowledge inherent to investing. www.angesquebec.com
About Anges Québec Capital
Anges Québec Capital is an investment fund created to provide financial support to Anges Québec members. The fund is mainly sponsored by Investissement Québec, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec and Fonds de solidarité FTQ, to support angel investors who invest in innovative start-up companies in Quebec. This joint effort by the angels and Investissement Québec has made $85.8 million available to entrepreneurs, allowing them to benefit from more substantial financial leverage in order to considerably increase development of their business. www.angesquebeccapital.com
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