The Venture Intelligence Blog

Economic Times has raised the "danger" flag on the bubble building up in the sector in a full page feature . "The hype around impact investing far outweighs reality," warns Vineet Rai, founder and chairman of Intellecap, with over a decade's experience in funding and handholding social entrepreneurs through the Aavishkaar funds. "The expectations being raised are just beyond the capability of the system to deliver." ... The noise around impact investing reached a crescendo in November 2010, when JP Morgan categorised it as a distinct asset class and estimated an investment opportunity between $400 billion and $1 trillion (about Rs 20,00,000 crore to Rs 50,00,000 crore)over the next decade. The profit potential estimated for the same period was a stupendous $183 billion to $667 billion. The study also indicated that in emerging markets, impact investments could fetch annual returns of 8-11% for debt investments and 20-24% for equity i...

Acumen Fund, a pioneering nonprofit global venture firm addressing poverty in South Asia and across Africa, today announced an equity investment of INR 9 crores (~$2M) in BASIX Krishi Samruddhi Limited (BASIX Krishi). BASIX Krishi delivers productivity enhancing extension services—such as soil testing, seed treatment, vermicomposting, pest management and good harvesting practices for crop farmers; and livestock vaccination, para-vet services, fodder demonstration and milk market linkages for dairy farmers. The company provides this service to its customers through a network of trained Livelihood Service Providers who visit each customer at least twice per month. Incorporated as a public limited company in April 2010, BASIX Krishi is part of the BASIX Social Enterprise Group promoted by Vijay Mahajan, an accomplished social entrepreneur who is considered a pioneer in the areas of financial inclusion and rural livelihood promotion. “The BASIX Krishi model can increase smallholder farmer ...

From the Business Today profile of the philanthropic investment firm founded by Pierre Omidyar, founder of Internet company eBay. Unlike other philanthropic organisations, ON does not come with a project-centred approach. Rather, it enters with the intention of building institutions. The two main requirements are: the organisation should fit into the ON portfolio and be scalable. Swati Ramanathan, Chairperson of the Indian Urban Space Foundation and co-founder of Janaagraha, an NGO working on urban quality of living, says the benefit of ON comes from its disciplined funding. In Janaagraha's case, while $3 million (Rs 13.8 crore) was given for three years, a third of the funds is for unrestricted use, while another third is tied to achievement of pre-determined metrics and the final third portion depends on the ability of the organisation to raise at least twice as much from other sources. This, according to Jayant Sinha, Mumbai-based Partner, ON, ensures that the organisation mak...

Economic Times has an article on how mainstream VCs are now increasingly investing in "bottom of the pyramid" opportunities. Arun Natarajan is the Founder & CEO of Venture Intelligence, the leading provider of data and analysis on private equity, venture capital and M&A deals in India. View free samples of Venture Intelligence newsletters and reports. Email the author at arun@ventureintelligence.in