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Moving Past the ‘Infrastructure of Hope’: Why Investors, Policymakers and Entrepreneurs Must Build a Modern E-Commerce Ecosystem in Southeast Asia
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for over 95% of all businesses in Southeast Asia, and millions of these entrepreneurs have migrated their hustle online. Yet according to Macy Castillo at Enstack, due to a lack of access to reliable payment options and other tools, they are attempting to build modern e-commerce businesses on a foundation of informal agreements and personal trust: an “infrastructure of hope” that leaves them exposed to payment fraud and locked out of formal finance. She argues that this is the central challenge for economic inclusion in Southeast Asia today, and explores Enstack's solution.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
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VC Firm Crane Launches $135 Million Fund in Asia Pacific
Crane Venture Partners was founded in 2015 and invests in technology companies at early stages across multiple regions.
- Categories
- Investing, Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
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Ghana’s Complete Farmer Secures $5 Million Funding From Symbiotics to Strengthen Smallholder Farming
Swiss impact investor Symbiotics has provided a USD 5 million debt facility to Complete Farmer, the Ghanaian agritech startup focused on strengthening agricultural value chains in West Africa.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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RMI Welcomes 18 Climate Tech Startups From Six Countries to Climate Tech Accelerator Third Derivative
Its portfolio represents 27 different countries, with over $3.7 billion raised by companies since their acceptance to Third Derivative, and over 4,400 jobs created.
- Categories
- Energy, Environment
- Region
- Global
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DEG Provides $50 Million Loan to Tanzania’s CRDB Bank to Boost Small Business Financing and Support Women and Youth Entrepreneurs
This financing will help address a significant gap in access to formal financing for small enterprises, which are vital to the Tanzanian economy.
- Categories
- Investing
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Mastercard Foundation Continues Africa Push with $10 Million for Sahel Capital
The investment is directed to the Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa (SEFAA), a vehicle designed to finance small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that support smallholder farmers across the continent.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Social Enterprise
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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AND Global Raises $21.4 Million to Power Financial Inclusion
This investment will support further development of AND Global’s services, such as digital lending and other fintech solutions, to improve financing access for small businesses, as well as the unbanked and underbanked across Asia.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- South Asia
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Ariya Finergy Secures €500,000 from CEI Africa to Scale Solar Solutions
These projects are expected to deliver more than 6,000 MWh of renewable electricity annually, reducing CO₂ emissions by an estimated 3,000 tonnes per year.
- Categories
- Energy
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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