The genesis for Beckon Capital was the ADC National Infrastructure and Cities Summit (2014) that looked at improving urban productivity and liveability. Chris Selth, Beckon Capital Chief Investment Officer and Founder chaired an ADC working group, which included Beckon’s Jamie Crowley, looking at infrastructure and productivity and presented the finding - “Paying our way on infrastructure”.
Two interrelated propositions were identified by the working group 1. That capital and resources cannot readily access local enterprises and projects, and 2. Without capital and resources, local enterprises and projects do not have the expertise to attract capital, nor the incentives to build that expertise. It was clear this was a wicked problem.
There was considerable global interest in this new thinking when the working group’s findings were published, and specific interest from a leading metropolitan authority wanting to explore how this thinking might be applied. This was the “a-ha” moment for Chris; value could be created by framing a business model addressing the problem.
This was the birth of Beckon Capital which was formed to explore if these ideas could be feasibly delivered into something real. It was apparent that a robust business proposition was needed to sustainably deliver services to get capital and capability to where it is most needed.
