NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, May 6, 2013

Investing in a social enterprise in India has become quite the in-thing and the definition of who is a social entrepreneur seems to be changing as well. Rajiv Lall, Vishal Mehta and Venky Natarajan, founder of ‘Lok Capital’ who started their journey in 2004 explains the opportunities and challenges of making investments in the Indian social entrepreneurial space.

It was the proverbial urge to do something more that bought the team at Lok Capital together. Then a Managing Director with Warburg Pincus in New York Rajiv Lal and Donald Peck of the Commonwealth Development Corporation and Actis setup Lok Capital in late 2000 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The idea was simply to find a way to facilitate entrepreneurs who wanted to address the inclusion challenge in India.