The Inner Foundation announces a commitment of €100m over the next 20 years to invest in mental health. Created by Annika Sten Pärson and Pär-Jörgen Pärson, the foundation has made more than 6 investments to date.

Launching The Inner Foundation

Annika Sten Pärson and Pär-Jörgen Pärson are launching today The Inner Foundation with a commitment to invest in both for-profit and non-profit organizations that are ready to scale to improve the inner health for the many. The foundation will focus particulary on young adults. 

“With our backgrounds, we know the strong impact entrepreneurs can have in changing society and our belief systems for the better. We recognize the need for more investments and scaling solutions for mental health, inclusion and diversity. The cost of doing nothing is just too high”, comments Annika Sten Pärson, Co-founder and Partner.

In 2020, $9.5 trillion was spent on health globally but only 1% was used on addressing mental health, according to WHO’s mental health report. “It is about time that we recognize there is a global social crisis and people all over the world feel increasingly lost, lonely, disconnected and excluded with deteriorating health as a result. But, there are solutions ready to scale, driven by innovative social entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, and changemakers holding the potential to contribute to real and sustainable change” , Annika Sten Pärson continues.

The Inner Foundation, therefore, will operate as both enabler, and activist, uniting public, private and non- profit efforts that cultivate healthy human development. The Inner Foundation will invest in innovative solutions, building community and context understanding, and will contribute to increased diversity, equity and inclusion in our society. The Foundation believes that there is massive funding required to finance a multitude of initiatives, from many funding sources and stakeholders, in order to create sustainable and impactful change and therefore welcomes opportunities to partner with like-minded organizations and individuals. 

“The Inner Foundation aims to attract as many as possible who share our sense of urgency to address these issues. Our role is to find and partner with strong changemakers so they can scale faster to realise their visions – there’s a mental health emergency and it is indeed the right time to put serious capital to work”, commments Pär-Jörgen Pärson, co- founder and Non-Executive Board Member.

The Foundation has, to date, invested in more than six organizations including Strong Minds – a non-profit that treats depression in women and adolescents in low-income communities in sub-Saharan Africa, Meela, a software company significantly improving health outcomes by achieving better matching between clients and therapists – and First Close Partners, an investment vehicle investing in funds owned by underrepresented venture fund managers to help them get to a “first close.”

About The Inner Foundation

The Inner Foundation was created as a significant force for good – equal parts impact investor, grant giver, and thought leader. We are witnessing a large gap between academic insight, best practice, and street-level action in the field of mental health and DEI and found it impossible to sit by and watch the problem getting increasingly worse. We instead made it our job to turn insight into action, step by step, and then to accelerate healing of the world to the next level: a world of thriving.

We consider ourselves part empowerers, part activists. We recognize the complexity and still, we aim for solutions that are simple, doable, and powerful. We set out to build an ecosystem of positive change agents with people and organizations that share our philosophy and theory of change. There are thousands of innovative solutions out there that carry the potential for counteracting the problems of loneliness, loss of direction, exclusion, and lack of diversity. We will not rest until these debilitating issues are addressed for real.

Annika Sten Pärson has held C-level top management positions in large telecoms, media, retail and consumer goods companies and has also served on private and public company boards. In 2019, Annika co-founded the Stockholm-based non-profit clinic 1825 - Therapy Centre for Young Adults, serving vulnerable young adults. She currently serves on several boards, including Strong Minds, addressing depression in Sub-Saharan Africa, the World Childhood Foundation, and Ashoka Nordics, the world's leading organization for social entrepreneurship and changemaking. 

Pär-Jörgen Pärson is a prolific early-stage venture capital investor for 25 years, having invested and served as board member in game changing companies such as Spotify, iZettle, Spring Health, Avito, Homa Games and many others in his capacity as General Partner at global Venture Capital firm Northzone. Pär-Jörgen serves as a non-executive board member of the Inner Foundation.

For press and other inquiries
www.theinnerfoundation.org
Press: hi@theinnnerfoundation.org
Phone: Chief of Staff, Precious Jocson +46 73 714 94 63
Phone: Partner, Caroline Stiernstedt Sahlborn +46 70 249 77 81