Apply for Social Impact Investment

Companies limited by shares operating and registered in the UK. 

You can describe what you do and how it helps advance one or more of our fund ambitions. 

Your venture must directly contribute to increasing access to social and affordable housing by addressing one or more of the following areas: 

• Enabling the supply of affordable housing: Innovations in construction to make housing faster, cheaper, or more scalable.
• Tools that streamline property development.
• Business models that increase the number of homes available for social and affordable housing.  

• Improving access to social housing: Marketplaces or platforms that help match people to social housing more effectively, financial products that unlock homeownership or rental pathways for low-income individuals such as those in receipt of benefits. 

• Supporting tenancy stability and financial security: Solutions that help tenants maintain stable housing, risk reduction products that make tenancies more secure for vulnerable renters.  

• Direct impact on Crisis Members: Demonstrable impact on people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.
• If operating in broader housing markets, they must provide a clear case for their impact on social housing and affordability.
• We do not invest in solutions that focus on managing homelessness rather than ending it; products or services that are paternalistic in their approach and perpetuate poor framing of homelessness or business models that do not have social impact at their core.  

• You are willing to introduce a mission lock to your articles of association: A mission lock is a legal mechanism designed to protect and safeguard the social or environmental mission of an organisation, regardless of changes in ownership or shareholder structure. 

• Examples of impact achieved from some of the companies in our portfolio. 

• You have a financial model with evidence of valid projections to reach financial sustainability and positive unit economics.   

• You have a working product and are generating revenue or have successfully piloted your solution indicating market demand. You are pre–series A in your funding strategy.  

• Your founding team is aligned to our mission and committed to ending homelessness.  

• Diverse and Inclusive Leadership: We actively encourage applications from ventures led by underrepresented founders, including those with lived experience of homelessness or housing insecurity. We prioritise teams that integrate lived experience insights into their solutions and demonstrate a strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in both leadership and impact.

• We consider every opportunity on its own. We prioritise standard equity investments and have utilised Convertible Loan Notes and Simple Agreements for Future Equity to accommodate diverse financing needs.  
• We offer equity investment alongside a tailored programme of support.   
• Our growth programme is designed with ventures to meet your growth needs in a way that leverages Crisis’ brand and networks. We bring in expert delivery partners to help advance your business and impact objectives.