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Hardware Innovation is … Hard: How These Entrepreneurs Overcame the Challenges
Compared with the creators of app-based products, hardware-focused innovators face a much more difficult and expensive journey, says Villgro CTO Arun Venkatesan. The resources and time required to perfect hardware iterations are larger, the lack of a mature ecosystem is a problem, and the buyer is often distinctly different from the user or beneficiary. Venkatesan profiles four hardware innovators in agriculture and health care, discussing how they worked through these obstacles.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
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Impact Investors Hold US$228 Billion in Assets
While not comprehensive, the annual survey “represents the largest exercise of its type in the market,”says Abhilash Mudaliar, the GIIN’s director of research.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing, research
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The Partnership Nightmare: What’s Wrong with the Social Sector’s Approach to Funding – And How to Fix It
Whether it's due to misaligned expectations, mutual distrust or power imbalances, interactions between social impact organizations and their funders can be nightmarish – for both sides. Social sector advocates Jessamyn Shams-Lau, Jane Leu and Vu Le have written a new book about these challenges, called "Unicorns Unite." In this Q&A, they discuss what's gone wrong – and how to make it better. Subscribers to NextBillion’s weekly e-newsletter can read an excerpt of the book throughout June.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
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‘Playing patient investor, Omidyar has not made many exits from $1.3B portfolio’
Philanthropic impact investor Omidyar Network has invested close to $1.3-billion in non-profit and for-profit ventures globally since it was founded in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar. But an investment principal at the fund confesses that the funder’s “patient” approach to funding means it has made few exits so far.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- ESG
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CARE Enterprises and Bamboo Capital Form For-Profit Subsidiary
Bamboo Capital Partners and CARE Enterprises announced a strategic partnership, focused on businesses serving people living in poverty in South and Southeast Asia.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Press release: Fenix International’s inclusive employee ownership programme gives first-of-its-kind pay-out in Africa
The ‘Fenix Flames’ programme extends benefits to employees in lieu of traditional company stock options. As part of an employee benefits programme, the scheme was designed to offer a pay-out in the event of an acquisition or public listing.
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Could Impact Investing Replace Charitable Giving?
Men are more likely than women to replace charitable giving with impact investing, the Women's Philanthropy Institute reports.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- ESG, impact investing, philanthropy, research
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Women Looking To Engage In Impact Investing
Women tend to be hungrier to engage with impact investing because it might resonate more with them than male counterparts, according to Mesch.
- Categories
- Investing