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Miller Center Capital Invests in Koolboks to Expand Solar-Powered Cold Storage for Micro-Entrepreneurs in Ghana
The financing will help Koolboks fulfill a large purchase order from a leading multinational FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods) company that will distribute solar-powered chest freezers to microfranchise vendors in Ghana.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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KCB Bank Kenya and European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) Sign US$100 Million Facility to Expand SME Financing
Under the framework, 35 per cent of the facility will be directed towards women and youth-led enterprises, while 30 per cent will finance eligible green investments, enabling businesses to adopt climate-smart technologies and sustainable business practices.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Environment, Finance, Investing, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Taking First-Loss Guarantees Further: Four Problems That Keep Social Enterprises Stuck, and How Entrepreneurship Support Organizations Can Address Them
Grants and equity dominate the conversation in impact finance, but according to Srinivas Ramanujam at Villgro, debt is often the most practical tool for social enterprises that are too large for a grant, but too small and early-stage for most equity investors. And since lenders face real and perceived risks around these companies' creditworthiness, first-loss guarantees can help make debt capital more accessible. However, he explains that a guarantee alone is not a silver bullet, and that the harder work involves solving the problems that keep enterprises stuck. He explores how Villgro has addressed four of these key challenges, highlighting takeaways for entrepreneurship support organizations and other intermediaries.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
-
Making Waste Pay: The Keys to Sustaining Paying Customers in Solid Waste Management
Despite growing discourse around the revenue potential of waste to wealth — i.e., reimagining waste as a valuable resource — profitability in municipal solid waste management remains low in India and other low- and middle-income countries. As Vishwanath Varma, Archana Masih, Diksha Rana and Ashish Kapil at Waste Warriors Society argue, this challenge has led to a growing focus on collecting user fees from households — yet that goal is easier said than done. They share analysis based on Waste Warriors Society’s user fee records and customer surveys, which reveals key insights on how to retain paying customers in solid waste management and other user fee-based models of social entrepreneurship.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise, WASH
-
What a Decade of TRANSFORM Teaches Us About Partnerships
The playbook’s central message is that meeting today’s social and environmental challenges requires radical collaboration at speed and scale.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Region
- Global
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Cascador Pitch Day 2026: Over $5 Million Deployed to Seven Transformative & Impactful Entrepreneurs In Nigeria
Cascador’s ScaleUp Program works with an elite cohort of entrepreneurs to strengthen leadership, sharpen strategy, and prepare founders to scale sustainably.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
-
Flipping the Script on Investor Feedback: A New Survey Gives Entrepreneurs a Platform to Assess — And Influence — Their Impact Investors’ Practices
There have been a number of critiques of impact investing in recent months, targeting several common investor practices. Yet as Yaquta Fatehi at the William Davidson Institute (WDI) points out, these appraisals rarely come from entrepreneurs, who often receive feedback from investors, but typically lack the ability to respond in kind. She shares a new research initiative by Acumen and WDI called "Founders in Focus: The State of Impact Capital" that aims to change this dynamic: Instead of focusing on what entrepreneurs need to do differently to attract investment, it invites founders to capture their experiences with investors — both the good and the bad — in a structured manner that can spark actual change in the investing ecosystem. The survey is open to founders and C-suite executives across Africa, Asia and Latin America who have raised capital in 2024-2025: Respond by June 26 to add your views.
- Categories
- Investing, Social Enterprise
-
Miller Center Capital Backs Manikstu Agro to Expand Goat Farming Livelihoods in Rural India
The catalytic loan will help scale government-subsidized livestock units for smallholder farming households.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- lending, scale, smallholder farmers
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