-
Uber Eats Alum Lands $14 Million Seed from a16z to Fix WhatsApp Chaos for Latin America’s Doctors
Solving the WhatsApp communication challenge in Latin America is critical because, according to Merin, patients in Latin America often choose their doctors based on their willingness to communicate using this channel.
- Categories
- Health Care, Investing, Telecommunications
- Region
- Latin America
-
Backing First-Time SME Finance Vehicles in Emerging Markets: 10 Years of Data Reveals Successful Pathways — And the Role of Catalytic Capital
Earlier this year, the Dutch Good Growth Fund, managed by Triple Jump, along with Investisseurs & Partneraires (I&P) published comprehensive research based on data they’ve collected over the past decade, aiming to shed light on what makes SME finance work across emerging markets — and in Africa in particular. In this second article of their series on NextBillion, Julia Kho at Triple Jump and Marianne Vidal-Marin at I&P share key findings from this research, which revealed pathways that could enable first-time SME risk capital providers to move from concept to first investments — and showed how catalytic capital has enabled others to build lasting models.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- impact investing, MSMEs, research
-
Analysis: Anxiety Brews at World Bank Over Workforce Overhaul
Mounting questions over World Bank’s sweeping consultant purge; the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation expands beyond critical minerals; and developing countries hit the largest debt financing gap in 50 years.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Global
-
Philanthropist MacKenzie Scott Gave $7.1 Billion to Nonprofits in 2025, a Major Increase
Scott’s donations have captured the attention of nonprofits and other charitable funders because they come with no strings attached and are often very large compared to the annual budgets of the recipient organizations.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Global
-
ResponsAbility Invests in Ace International, a Leading Nutrition and Dairy Ingredients Producer in India
This facility aims to bring modern processing technology to India, with capabilities to produce nutrition ingredients aligned with global quality and sustainability standards.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Investing
- Region
- Asia Pacific
-
Microsoft Investing $17.5 Billion in India for AI and Cloud Infrastructure
The announcement underscores the growing global competition among major technology companies to expand in India, which has become one of the world’s fastest-growing digital markets.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
-
Five35 Ventures Secures Anchor Investment from Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund
The MEDA-backed anchor capital is expected to bolster Five35’s capacity to deepen its reach across East, West and Southern Africa, support more female entrepreneurs, and bridge critical financing gaps between pre-seed and scale stages.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
Context Instead of Carbon: Why Climate Finance in Africa Must Shift its Focus from Mitigation to Adaptation
Global climate action has long been framed through a binary lens: either mitigation or adaptation. As Sheena Raikundalia at Kuza One explains, this framework shapes how funding flows, how projects are designed and even how “success” is measured: Mitigation attracts the bulk of funding because it produces measurable carbon outcomes and enables high-emitting countries to meet their net-zero targets, while adaptation's local benefits are harder to quantify, commodify or sell. She argues that this imbalance risks turning African landscapes into carbon farms for the Global North, and also obscures the fact that many of Africa’s most climate-smart solutions could be promising investments — if the current financing architecture would support them. NOTE: In celebration of our 20th anniversary, NextBillion is highlighting key guest articles from our two decades online. We’re currently focusing on the healthcare sector: You can read these featured articles below.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Investing
Subscribe to Our Weekly Newsletter, "NextBillion Notes"
Published each Wednesday, our e-newsletter features NextBillion's latest original articles, along with a selection of news, jobs, bizdev opportunities and events from our recent coverage — and regular conference ticket giveaways.
We respect your privacy. Your information is safe and will never be shared.
Don't miss out. Subscribe today.