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Viewpoint: Rise of the ‘Carbon Capitalist’
According to Matthew Roling, Aside from wealth creation, there will be at least two other benefits to scaling the carbon market.
- Categories
- Finance
- Region
- Global
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Three Common Mistakes Startups Make When Running Lean Experiments – And How To Avoid Them
Reaching product-market fit is critical to growing a startup, but the process can be chaotic, as founders must solve multiple problems at once. But while planning and strategizing can address some of these issues, Akansha Kasera and Malika Anand at Catalyst Fund argue that the most robust solutions come from experiments and iterations. They explore the lean experimentation approach used by Catalyst Fund's portfolio companies, share a free product-market fit toolkit that can guide experiment design — and highlight three mistakes to avoid during this crucial process.
- Categories
- Finance, Impact Assessment
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The Value and Limitations of Market-Based Innovations for Impact: Three Takeaways After COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has made one thing clear: Digital innovation in service delivery and infrastructure is critical to economic inclusion – both in emerging markets and around the world. But as Tilman Ehrbeck at Flourish Ventures points out, the crisis has also provided a humble reminder that digital infrastructure, private-sector innovation and market-based solutions are not sufficient to ensure broad-based prosperity. He shares three observations, rooted in the experiences of the pandemic, about the value — and limitations — of private-sector approaches in a post-COVID-19 world.
- Categories
- Coronavirus, Technology
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Kenya’s Wapi Pay Raises $2.2 Million Pre-Seed for Cross-Border Payments Between Africa and Asia
Wapi Pay will use the investments to engage regulators for licensing across Africa and for scale, product and geographical expansion.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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Egyptian Social E-Commerce Startup Taager Closes $6.4 Million Seed Round
Egyptian social e-commerce startup Taager has raised a US$6.4 million seed funding round to help it scale its platform and expand across the Middle East.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- e-commerce, investing, scale, social impact, startups
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Scaling Biodigesters: How Appropriate Financing Can Help This Undervalued Technology Deliver Social and Environmental Impact
Biodigesters break down organic material to produce biogas for cooking and heating, along with fertilizer. But though these applications are extremely useful for farming households, uptake remains limited: In Africa alone, the technology could be adopted by almost 33 million households, but market penetration is less than 1% of that. Tanya Kothari of the Catalysing Agriculture by Scaling Energy Ecosystems program shares a recent study from the Shell Foundation exploring the impact biodigesters can make, while identifying the kinds of financing that could support growth in the market.
- Categories
- Agriculture, Energy
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Press Release: Convergence Provides Funding to Protect Critical Habitat and Advance Sustainable Agriculture in Indonesia
Convergence awards a feasibility study grant to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) to develop a blended finance solution in Indonesia that increases access to credit and training for smallholder coffee farmers to engage in sustainable agriculture
- Categories
- Agriculture
- Region
- South Asia
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Kenyan Foodtech Startup Kune Raises $1 Million Pre-Seed for Its Ready-to-Eat Meals Service
Kenyan foodtech startup Kune has announced that it has closed a $1 million pre-seed round to launch its on-demand food service in August.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
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