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Progress and Frustration: How Investors are Pushing Impact Investing Toward Greater Transparency
Impact investments are likely to top $1 trillion in the not-too-distant future. But as the sector grows, so does the need for greater transparency about who is benefiting, in what ways, and to what degree, says Paige Chapel at Aeris Insight. And though institutional investors are moving toward more accountability, 80% of retail investors still find it difficult to measure the impact of their portfolios. She explores this challenge – and some emerging, tech-based solutions.
- Categories
- Impact Assessment, Investing
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‘It’s Not About Subsidies’ – And Five Other Myths About Blended Finance
The excitement around blended finance is growing – but so are the misconceptions about it. Bjoern Struewer at Roots of Impact highlights five myths about the approach, and argues that investors and public funders should admit – and embrace – one inconvenient truth: By providing catalytic capital to mobilize commercial investment, blended finance is subsidizing private investors' returns.
- Categories
- Investing
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Filling the Funding Gap: Two Innovative Ways to Improve Financing Opportunities for Social Impact Entrepreneurs
Social entrepreneurs often struggle to scale their enterprises because of difficulties accessing tailor-made capital. According to Carola Schwank at Siemens Stiftung's empowering people.Network, this is often due to a clear mismatch in pairing up social entrepreneurs and impact investors. She explores two key solutions to this crucial challenge, featured in Siemens Stiftung's “Innovative Financing for Social Entrepreneurs” report.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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Navigating Risks as Private Equity Moves into Impact Investing: Examples from Kenya
It's no surprise that impact investing has been adopted by development-focused organizations – but it has increasingly also attracted the attention of more profit-driven institutions, including some leading private equity firms. While this represents a milestone in the sector's march toward the mainstream, Julio De Souza and Gianluca Storchi at StratLink Advisory Group discuss some persistent concerns – illustrated with examples from their home base in Kenya.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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How Investors and Energy Providers Can Unleash Solar Growth in Uganda
The Ugandan solar market is a prime destination for local and international clean energy access investment. But many new investors are in the dark on critical issues, such as the maturity/development of local companies in the space, and the types of investments they need to propel their businesses forward. The United Nations Capital Development Fund and Challenges Uganda recently partnered to produce an in-depth market study designed to help Uganda’s fledgling solar industry take flight.
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What’s Really Driving Africa’s ‘Investment Frenzy’?: An Entrepreneur Responds to Investor Concerns
In her much-discussed NextBillion article about avoiding “the Africa investment frenzy,” impact investor Lauren Cochran urged entrepreneurs to forego the “growth-at-all-costs” approach to scaling and “the ego-boost of big rounds and press releases.” But Zoona co-founder Mike Quinn argues that her advice ignores a reality that many investors don’t recognize. Quinn pushes back on Cochran's argument from an entrepreneur's perspective in this compelling counterpoint.
- Categories
- Finance, Investing, Social Enterprise
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Creating Jobs While Fighting Poverty: An Innovative Social Micro-Franchise Model Gains Traction in Haiti
All too many global development efforts fail to appreciate the value of a steady paycheck – or the role of small businesses as job creators in poor communities, says Marc Blumenthal at Social Ventures Foundation (SVF). This has stagnated poverty reduction campaigns, leaving vulnerable populations in need after government and NGO funds dry up. He shares SVF's efforts to reverse this dynamic, through social micro-franchise business models that address poverty-related issues, while also creating sustainable jobs in low-income communities.
- Categories
- Investing
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Rethinking the ‘Africa Play’: Why We Held Back from the Africa Investment Frenzy
Earlier this year, the investment committee at Blue Haven Initiative’s Ventures team raised a painful question: Did they miss the boat? As managing director Lauren Cochran explains, they'd only made one new investment at a time when the venture market in Africa was exploding. But it soon became clear that the growth-at-all-costs model other investors were adopting was never going to work in Africa. Cochran explains why investors should "forget the ego-boost of big rounds and press releases" and take a more fundamental approach.
- Categories
- Investing