NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, July 30, 2012

Mumbai, India, July 25, 2012 – Acumen Fund, a pioneering nonprofit global venture fund addressing poverty across Africa and South Asia, today announced a INR 1.5 Crore ($300K) equity investment in Edubridge Learning Private Limited, a growing company that provides vocational skills training for low income youth across Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Chhattisgarh

The investment builds on the recent launch of Acumen Fund’s Education Portfolio, which seeks to support private sector innovations that increase access to low-cost, high-quality learning and employability services for the poor. Acumen’s investments aim to support the development of early stage companies with a focus on meeting the needs of low-income market segments, an approach recently explored in a report released by the Monitor Group and Acumen entitled “From Blueprint to Scale.”

“Edubridge is an early stage company that has tremendous potential to significantly alter the landscape of opportunities for rural youth in India,” said Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO and Founder of Acumen Fund. “This is just one example of where we can help enterprises creating public goods in markets where government and commercial players have not fully met the needs of the poor. These investments allow us to leverage our patient capital to help launch businesses with creative approaches to major social issues.”