The conversation about how many startups and brands are switching to AI powered products in the hope of attracting investor interest has now led to another issue and question:
Are investors making it harder for purpose driven businesses solving healthcare, climate, financial inclusion and social problems to secure funding?
Let’s unpack…
Are Purpose Driven Founders Finding It Harder To Secure Investment?
The short: data from Unrest’s third Impact Investor Office Hours programme indicates that many are.
The long: The London based accelerator found that UK impact led startups are seeking at least £690 million in venture capital, based on 485 applications received during the first quarter of 2026.
Nearly 88% of applicants were raising pre seed or seed funding, the stage where access to capital is often hardest. The programme brought together 82 venture capital firms, selected 100 startups and arranged 222 one to one meetings between founders and investors in less than a week.
Those 100 selected startups alone were seeking more than £190 million.
Fundraising is also taking longer and Crunchbase data, referenced in the report, found that the average duration of a seed round worth $1 million or more has stretched to 3.3 years. Consumer facing and applied technology startups, categories containing many impact businesses, have faced particular difficulty.
Unrest co founder Pan Demetriou said, “Founders aren’t short on ambition or commercial discipline. What’s changed is access. When seed rounds are taking years rather than months, the ecosystem needs better mechanisms to connect early-stage founders with aligned capital – not just more capital in theory.”
Is There Enough Impact Capital Available?
Impact investing itself is bringing in decent amounts of money with more than $1.16 trillion invested for impact globally. In the UK, £77 billion had been deployed by 2023. Government estimates place that at around £106 billion in 2025.
Just about 90% of impact investors report meeting or exceeding expected financial returns. That weakens the long running argument that purpose driven businesses struggle to generate attractive financial outcomes.
Orr Vinegold, co founder of Unrest, believes the issue lies within funding infrastructure. He said, “The tragedy is that durable, problem-led businesses are exactly what’s being rationed out of the market right now – not because the returns aren’t there, but because early-stage capital infrastructure wasn’t designed with them in mind.”
So, according to the data, the capital exists and investors report healthy returns, but still, early stage founders are struggling to access that money.
Is AI Influencing Investor Priorities?
The findings also reveal a divide between what many founders are building and what often dominates venture capital conversations.
Almost every applicant, 97.5%, identified as tech enabled. Software, platforms and digital services form the foundation of many of these businesses.
Only around 5% identified as AI first – that distinction is important. These founders are using technology in service of a problem. AI is present in only a small share of businesses applying through the programme.
Vinegold said, “97% of these businesses are tech-enabled. Only 5% are AI-first. I think that tells you something important: these founders are choosing tools based on what the problem actually needs, not what’s fashionable in a pitch deck. That’s the kind of discipline that builds durable companies.”
The report does not claim investors are rejecting purpose driven startups because they are not AI first. What it does reveal is that many founders working on social and environmental challenges are building businesses around specific problems, rather than around the latest technology category attracting venture capital interest.
What Problems Are The Purpose-Driven Founders Trying To Solve?
Health and wellbeing represented 30% of applications, which includes mental health, women’s health, preventative care, medtech and emotional support.
Climate, food and sustainability represented 27% of applications. Financial resilience and access represented 20% and social connection and inclusion represented 13%.
Those categories are dealing with issues affecting daily life, from healthcare access and affordability to food systems and financial exclusion.
Demetriou said, “When the NHS is under the kind of pressure it’s under, when housing is unaffordable for an entire generation, when financial exclusion and cost of living is still a lived reality for millions – the founders trying to build solutions to those problems should not be the hardest ones to fund. But right now, they are. That’s what this data shows, and it’s what we built Unrest and Impact Investor Office Hours to start fixing.”
The findings from Unrest imply that investors are not abandoning purpose driven businesses. Impact investing continues to attract substantial capital and many investors report meeting return expectations.
Early stage founders working on solving essential problems are finding fundraising difficult, regardless and with AI attracting more and more investor interest, many founders are still sticking to build around specific human problems and searching for investors willing to back those missions.
