Blog
Blog
In May 2025, we were delighted to host an in-person meeting in Olsztyn, Poland, bringing together NESsT portfolio enterprises, partners from IKEA Social Entrepreneurship, and members of the NESsT regional and global teams.
Enterprises face a major challenge when it comes to accessing capital: limited access to credit and investment, as they are often deemed high-risk by traditional banks and investors. With this gap in funding, blended finance emerges as a strategic solution. It combines philanthropic, public, and private capital to reduce risk and attract investment in sustainable enterprises. By taking on the first risk, organizations like NESsT create the necessary conditions for banks and private investors to feel confident in supporting these businesses, thus increasing their access to credit and growth capital.
NESsT announces today that it has joined the Sustainable Connections Institute (Conexsus), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) in AmazonBeEco, an unprecedented four-year initiative to support the sociobioeconomy in the Pan-Amazon region.
Many community-based enterprises in emerging sustainable socio-bioeconomy value chains lack the means and infrastructure to adopt digital monitoring and communication tools to track forest conservation and improve their production processes. With support from Cisco Foundation, in 2021, NESsT launched a search for early-stage technology enterprises that provide sustainable livelihoods to underserved communities and regenerate the environment. Read more about the initiative learnings here.
As we kick off celebrations for Pride Month 2025, we’re revisiting the recent efforts of the NESsT Violet Fund that have helped drive our work to bring vital financial and technical support to enterprises that are advancing equality for the LGTBQIA+ community in Central & Eastern Europe.
NESsT announces Renata Truzzi has been named Chief Impact & Operations Officer. Truzzi – who joined the organization in 2012 – has served in multiple capacities within NESsT, most recently as Global Acceleration & Impact Director. Her background in impact investing, business development, marketing, and fundraising will further support NESsT’s organizational effectiveness and operational excellence.
We’re delighted to release the NESsT 2024 Annual Report, highlighting a year defined by far-reaching impact and transformative growth. For nearly three decades, NESsT has worked at the nexus of people, profit, and the planet. In 2024, we reached a milestone that speaks to this mission: since its founding, NESsT has positively impacted the lives of over 3.4 million people from communities around the world.
Sweden joins as a donor to NESsT’s long-standing South America acceleration program, enabling the program to increase the number of enterprises it supports and to expand its efforts in Colombia, Peru, and into Brazil.
Our work on the ground in Brazil’s Amazon region has consistently shown that increasing women's participation is critical for the socio-bioeconomy to become a robust and sustainable national development strategy.
NESsT announces that Chad Sachs has been appointed Chief Executive Officer. Sachs has held a series of senior management roles with NESsT since joining in 2019, most recently as Chief Investment Officer. He brings deep experience in the worlds of finance and social impact that will further reinforce NESsT’s mission of developing sustainable communities and building an inclusive economy.
In celebration of Women’s History Month, we are spotlighting the stories of three women entrepreneurs at the helm of enterprises in the NESsT portfolio in Central & Eastern Europe and South America.
NESsT, a global impact organization dedicated to supporting high-potential social entrepreneurs that create meaningful employment and income opportunities in their communities, is proud to announce the appointment of Dana Gilland to the NESsT Board of Directors.
We spoke to our portfolio managers and entrepreneurs in the region to uncover the lessons learned and insights gained from three years of close-up acceleration and collaboration in the region catalyzing wide-ranging, innovative business models and supporting the financial independence and stability of people from diverse backgrounds.
This International Women’s Day, NESsT is celebrating our portfolio of enterprises that are making a real impact in advancing gender equity in South America and Central & Eastern Europe, as well as NESsT’s commitment to Gender Lens Investing and gender equity within our organization.
As questions on the value of diversity, equity, and inclusion arise around the world, we maintain our commitment to advancing social justice by injecting financing and business opportunities into social enterprises impacting excluded communities in South America and Central and Eastern Europe.
In this blog, we speak with bioeconomy entrepreneurs to better understand the challenges they face when applying for funding from multiple sources. Read it now to learn how complex application criteria and reporting demands impact their businesses and explore actionable recommendations for how the funding community can help ensure more equitable, inclusive access to financing.
The next iteration of NESsT’s accelerator program in Central and Eastern Europe, with a focus on Poland and Romania, will be backed by our long-standing partners, IKEA Social Entrepreneurship and Cisco Foundation. This phase will accompany 26 companies on their growth and impact journeys, providing capacity building, knowledge sharing, and mentoring with industry experts at NESsT, IKEA Social Entrepreneurship, and Cisco Foundation.
As I celebrate my one-year anniversary as CEO of NESsT, I wanted to reflect on what it means to lead a purpose-driven organization defined by vision and impact. NESsT was created with the vision that businesses could thrive while prioritizing social and environmental outcomes. That visionary approach continues to guide us today as we actively choose to evolve and grow.
In 2023, we outlined objectives that focused on those directly impacted by our work and the work of the social enterprises in our portfolio. Our survey, completed by NESsT portfolio managers and team members sitting down with the 531 respondents who participated, captures the following information: Who are the direct beneficiaries of our work? Are their jobs well-paid and secure? How do they feel about their career opportunities? How do they feel about their workplaces? How does our work impact their families overall? Is our work making a real difference in their lives?
NESsT’s recent study and extensive research identifies that the term ‘bioeconomy’ is often broadly interpreted by bioeconomy funders and global policymakers, sometimes straying far from a vision of environmental stewardship. We interviewed Indigenous leaders and entrepreneurs as part of ongoing efforts to deepen our understanding of their perspectives, vision and expectations of the bioeconomy as not just as an economic model, but as a way of life rooted deeply in ancestral tradition.
At COP16, NESsT reinforced its ongoing commitment to improving access to funding for locally-led bioeconomy initiatives in the Amazon. This work, including its plans to invest $6 million in seed-stage financing through 2025 to support these efforts, was recently featured in Carbon Pulse.
This blog delves into the methodology behind NESsT’s publication to improve the targeting, accessibility, efficacy, and efficiency of investments in the Amazon bioeconomy; it homes in on NESsT’s firm intention to bring local voices to global discussions around Amazon bioeconomy funding and explores how NESsT anchored the publication in authentic narratives and diverse Amazonian contexts while tailoring the message for the international financing community.
As part of its ongoing commitment to address the pressing challenges faced by entrepreneurs in Latin America, particularly in the Andes-Amazon region, the NESsT Lirio Fund is expanding its reach into Brazil. The fund is investing in small and medium-sized enterprises that create dignified income opportunities and improve local livelihoods while contributing to environmental conservation.
NESsT announces today exciting leadership developments in two of its South American markets, due to ever-growing opportunities to channel financial resources and business acumen to social enterprises based through the Andes and Amazon.
NESsT and The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation are partnering to consolidate and scale Indigenous peoples and local community (IPLC) enterprises in the Amazon that contribute to the bioeconomy and conserve the environment.
Ludmila and Anatolyi have worked at Box Elyte since 2022 when, together with their daughter, they were forced to flee their homes due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Today on World Refugee Day, we share their story in this photo essay.
NESsT’s extensive one-year research reveals critical insights to drive better-targeted investments for Indigenous Peoples and local communities.
The nine enterprises to join the South America Accelerator Program, co-created by NESsT and IKEA Social Entrepreneurship, are set to drive sustainable development and inclusive growth across the region.
This past February marks two years since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.
As of February 2024, an estimated 3.7 million people are still displaced within Ukraine’s borders, and 6.5 million refugees are in countries such as Poland and Romania. The reality is, although it has been two years since the crisis began, millions of refugees in the region still need support to find dignified work that allows them to feed their families.
Impact investing trailblazer ImpactAssets has selected NESsT to its IA 50 Emerging Impact Managers 2024 list of newer fund managers to watch that demonstrate potential to create meaningful impact.
