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In South Africa’s Poor Townships, Social Entrepreneurs Are Creating a Food Delivery Service
People who live a long way from grocery stores pay more for food because they have to travel there and back, which costs money, and they waste more time doing it. That's why two social entrepreneurs from Cape Town, South Africa, have come up with Lakheni, a group buying club that aggregates orders, with local daycare centers serving as a base.
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Weekly Roundup 9-11-15: Accelerators for VCs, Ugandan-made EVs and other rare ‘unicorns’ of global development spotted
This week's developments featured a novel tool to help fix the lack of local venture capital and investment expertise in social enterprises, a new era for M-PESA, a new health care alliance and hybrid car in Africa, and a fascinating debate about what type of entity might become the continent’s first unicorn.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise
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Human Waste as a Value Chain: ‘Sustainable sanitation’ startup has plans to expand throughout Peru and, eventually, abroad
Lima, Peru, is one of the driest capital cities in the world. That's one reason x-runner, a social enterprise, has had success selling urine-diverting dry toilets and coordinating a for-pay sanitation system for subscribers in the slums there. Another reason might be its trial and error, local-oriented approach.
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- Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology
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$30 Million Committed to Australian Impact Investment Fund
Superannuation fund HESTA has committed $30 million to create an impact investment fund managed by Social Ventures Australia, which is said to be the single largest investment of its kind in Australia to date.
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- Impact Assessment
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World’s Most Sustainable Water Source to Raise $10 Million in California Direct Public Offering
Cutting Edge Capital (CEC), a leading firm helping social ventures and entrepreneurs raise capital, announced today that its client WaterFX Hydro I, Inc., dba HydroRevolution, received regulatory approval for a California limited public securities offering (DPO) to accredited and non-accredited investors in the amount of $10 million. The offering is being listed on CuttingEdgeX, a web-based platform that showcases DPOs for all types of investors. CuttingEdgeX’s Online Investment Tool (OIT) streamlines the investing process by allowing issuers like HydroRevolution to post the offering documents, explain the investment, stay in compliance with the securities laws, and receive commitments from investors, all electronically.
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- Uncategorized
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Muhammad Yunus’ Firm in Talks for Social Business JVs in India
Nobel laureate and founder of Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus, is all set to roll out his flagship social business, in a joint venture with corporates in India soon. Yunus’ social business marketing company — Yunus Social Business (YSB) India —is in talks with a slew of corporates in India who can be joint venture partners in the social business venture, a model where profits are ploughed back to the company. These profits can be then used for employment generation and affordable healthcare.
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- Health Care
- Region
- South Asia
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Iluméxico to Bring Solar Energy to 300,000 in Mexico’s Off-Grid Communities
Iluméxico, the Mexican social enterprise focused on solar power, has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a commitment to bring its Solar Home Systems to 50,000 off-the-grid rural homes – approximately 300,000 people – by 2020. This commitment includes the creation of 180 new jobs, of which 90 will be designated for women and 70 will be based in rural communities.
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- Energy
- Region
- Latin America
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Mobile Lender InVenture Raises $10 Million
InVenture Capital Corp., a provider of small loans by cellphones, has raised $10 million in Series A funding, Yuliya Chernova reports for Dow Jones VentureWire. The company has a mobile app that can be downloaded by users, who then can request a loan. Once the user has granted the app access to their device, the company’s algorithm evaluates the activity on their mobile money accounts, such as how much they deposit and withdraw, the timeliness of their utility bill payments, and thousands of other nuggets of information such as social media, demographic, and communications patterns, to make a loan decision in minutes. The company currently operates in Kenya and Tanzania. Data Collective led the Series A round, which includedLowercase Capital, Collaborative Fund, Female Founders Fund and individual investors.
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- Uncategorized