The closure of the Triodos Opportunities Fund is not a result of lack of deal flow but rather a lack of deal flow that meets its specific investment risk criteria.  This is a dilemma that faces all social investors - how do we assess the risk of the investments that we make when we are also committing to deliver a long term return to the investors whose money we are managing.  Triodos was not investing Government money or donations from philanthropists but money that individuals wanted back and with a return.  Whilst there is experience in debt financing in the market, equity is largely unchartered territory and it is a credit to Triodos that they given it a go.
The concept of investment risk is an area that the sector is going to have to become much more familiar with as Government money disappears and the only option is to raise capital through investment. Organisations should not underestimate the level of due diligence that they will be subject to; and rightly so when people's savings are at stake.  At the CIC Forum last week, the audience was split neatly into two.  There were those that saw themselves as businesses and had diversified their client base and their income streams and then there were those that hadn't and were expecting that, somehow, the grant tap would be turned on again. The latter will not be successful at raising investment finance.
As finance intermediaries in the sector what we can do is provide investment readiness support to the sector.  The SEC is, at the moment, in the process of setting up a Finance Forum which looks to bring together all the major social finance intermediaries in the sector precisely so that we can all start to prepare the market for what is ahead.