Financing the Future: Innovative Instruments for Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Access to capital remains one of the biggest barriers to innovation—especially for early-stage ventures tackling complex social and environmental challenges. Traditional finance often doesn’t match the needs of impact-driven entrepreneurs. It’s time to rethink the toolbox.

This session explores cutting-edge financial instruments that are unlocking capital for innovation—from revenue-based financing and quasi-equity, to basket bonds, blended finance, public guarantees, and outcome-based funding. It also highlights forward-thinking public funding approaches, such as FFG’s Expedition Zukunft, which supports groundbreaking innovations aimed at long-term, systemic change across society, technology, and markets.

We’ll dig into what’s working, what’s emerging, and how investors and ecosystem builders can structure capital in ways that are flexible, catalytic, and aligned with long-term impact.

• Beyond Equity and Debt – Alternative models that match entrepreneurial realities and risk profiles.

• Blended & Layered Capital – How to combine public, philanthropic, and private funding to unlock new investment pathways.

• Outcome-Based Finance – Paying for results, not just activity—what’s the potential for scaling impact through pay-for-success models.

• New Instruments in Practice – Case studies of funds and ventures leveraging innovative structures to grow sustainably.