Xceptional Successfully Raises $600,000 Impact Investment

We are pleased to announce that our client, Xceptional, has successfully raised innovative debt and equity finance which will enable it to continue its growth offering skills-based technology employment for people on the autism spectrum.

Since launching in 2017, Xceptional has placed over 30 candidates in specialised IT roles and aims to use the funding to place 60 more over the next year.

“Our growth to date speaks to the incredible opportunity in placing neurodiverse candidates in specialised roles and shattering any stigma around hiring these candidates,” Mike Tozer, CEO and founder of Xceptional said.

“Those on the autism spectrum, for example, often have remarkable attention to detail and advanced problem-solving skills, making them ideal candidates for complex code testing tasks.

“So far we have focused our efforts on placing roles in Australia’s largest companies. Now that we’ve proven the model, we’ll be expanding our target pool and will look to place candidates in government, startups and SMEs.”

The transaction included the BOLD, a new financing tool that incentivises beneficial outcomes, because the loan balance decreases if the borrower’s impact increases. In this case, the impact is the number of people securing employment and the overall wellbeing of the people in those jobs. It was designed by Impact Investment Group who produced this explainer providing the finer details, and supported by the Snow Foundation, Tripple, the Community Impact Fund and the Disability Impact Fund.

The BOLD investment was supplemented by an equity investment from private investor Roslyn Baguley, who is also a member of the Social Impact Hub’s Professional Impact Network.

We were privileged to advise on these transactions with the support of an Impact Investment Readiness Growth Grant. You can read more about the transaction in The Australian, Start Up Daily or Smart Company.