Renewal has been investing in early stage businesses at the forefront of social and environmental innovation for almost 15 years.  Over that time, the good in the world being done by companies that we have been involved with has been apparent to many, but the financial returns built by these social entrepreneurs has been less obvious.

With the launch of Renewal2, our social venture fund for outside investors, the time had come to value the Renewal portfolio - both to help investors kick the tires for Renewal2 and to help grow the social investing sector by allowing others to make the argument that you can do well by doing good.   So we have gone through the process of getting a professionally prepared track record, complied by Chartered Business Valuers (CBVs).  When all the dust settled (literally in the file room) Renewal Partners first portfolio of representative investments has had an internal rate of return (you can think of it as the average annual return over the life of the fund) of 12.2% - a respectable return by all accounts and one that if replicated in Renewal2 would allow us to meet our target of a three times return over ten years.   While past performance cannot be used to predict the future, we know we are on to something good.  Spread the word.