How One Investment Fund Is Tackling America’s ‘Glaring Inequality’ Problem
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Acumen, a New York-based nonprofit global venture fund, today announced it has begun investing in US startups aimed at serving underprivileged Americans.
For the last 15 years, the fund has focused on alleviating poverty in the developing world by investing in businesses that operate at the bottom of the pyramid, like solar-light manufacturer D.light and Burn, which makes and sells cookstoves in East Africa.
Since the former Wall Street banker Jacqueline Novogratz, Acumen’s chief executive, started the fund in 2001, it has raised more than $100m in charitable donations to invest in enterprises addressing poverty in Africa, South Asia and Latin America.
Now, the fund is unexpectedly turning its attention closer to home. Acumen America aims to tackle the “glaring inequality” in the US, according to Novogratz.
Source: The Guardian (link opens in a new window)
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