While Indian startups have successfully set a new record for the best-ever fundraising quarter in the first quarter of 2022 – raising around $19 billion, startups in India saw a fall in funding by 37% quarter-on-quarter in Q2 2022. Yet on the flip side, a total of 78 Indian VCs and funds have raised over $12.3 billion.
22 March 2022, Mr. Robert Kraybill, Chief Investment Officer and Managing Director, Portfolio Management at Impact Investment Exchange, attended as a speaker at an event jointly hosted by OECD Private Finance for Sustainable Development Community of Practice (CoP – PF4SD) and the Tri Hita Karana Blended Finance Platform.
Mr. Kraybill provided insights into the place of impact measurement, monitoring and transparency in blended finance transactions, in particular on the opportunities and challenges they pose to developing country partners.
Impact Partners PitchFest 2022 kicked off with the APAC region. We received up to 200 applicants and we are excited to share with you the exceptional enterprises that have managed to impress the judges with their world-changing solutions to economic growth with a gender lens.
We hope that through the access and support gained from this event, these enterprises are equipped to scale their impact on the world.
Congratulations to the Impact Partners PitchFest 2022 – APAC winners and finalists!
SINGAPORE AND CANBERRA [September 15, 2021] – Impact Investment Exchange (IIX) and the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) announced today the launch of three blended finance solutions to boost resilience and drive investment to small and medium-sized businesses and underserved women in the Asia-Pacific. With AUD2.75 million in funding from the Australian Government, IIX will unlock an additional AUD18 million through the catalytic use of the funding.
July 6, 2021 – SINGAPORE – Impact Investment Exchange (IIX)’s Women’s Livelihood BondTM 1 (WLB1), the world’s first gender lens and impact investing instrument to be listed on a stock exchange (the Singapore Exchange), matured on July 6, 2021. With all coupon payments and principal payments made on time, even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, the Bond provided investors with an annual return of 5.65% from 2017-2021. The WLB1 is the first issuance of the US$150M Women’s Livelihood Bond Series, a series of innovative debt securities that creates sustainable livelihoods for over 3 million underserved women across the Asia-Pacific and other emerging markets. In addition to its strong financial performance, all social performance targets, including targets for increased financial inclusion and financial resilience, were met or exceeded, demonstrating the sustainability of the bond’s underlying portfolio throughout the pandemic.
As part of our 10th Year Anniversary, our Trailblazers in Impact Interview Series celebrates some of the partners we’ve worked with over the years in creating positive social and environmental impact. In this edition, we speak with Founder and CEO of BWiz Capital, Takeshi Kato, who has been an Impact Partners investor since 2016. BWiz Capital has since invested in high-impact enterprises through Impact Partners—namely Krakakoa, a woman-led bean-to-bar chocolate-maker in Indonesia and ERC Eye Care, an enterprise that delivers affordable and inclusive eye care to low-income persons in India.
In 2016, Takeshi Kato started BWiz Capital, an impact investing company based in Tokyo, which targets funding for impact enterprises that are innovating solutions to eradicate poverty and impacting underserved communities and is utilizing his experience in investment to make a case for impact investing in Japan.
Prior to BWiz Capital, Kato was Managing Director at Japan Industrial Partners, a private equity firm specializing in corporate buyouts. He was also CEO and Head of Investment Banking and Mergers & Acquisitions Advisory at Mizuho Securities India in Mumbai, along in corporate finance and asset management businesses in Tokyo and New York.
Technology advancements leave certain people behind.
The industrial revolution that took place in the 18th century and post-world war II is proof to this. Previously agrarian, rural societies in Europe and USA became industrial and urban. Steam engines, powered machinery, factories and mass production replaced skilled workers and artisans. Today, people argue platforms like Uber are generating new income opportunities, but a recent court ruling where Uber was fined $20m for misleading drivers with inflated wages reveals a darker secret.
Bangladesh-based startup SOLshare developed the world’s first peer-to-peer solar energy trading platform, making clean energy affordable and accessible to off-grid households through a decentralized system of energy distribution. SOLshare was the IIX Growth Fund‘s first Bangladesh investment.
We sit down with Dr. Sebastian Groh, Managing Director and Co-founder of SOLshare, to talk about how this “Airbnb of Energy” is helping communities in rural Bangladesh move up the energy ladder.
In less than a dozen of years, an Asian child in a remote, rural community will fall ill with fever following a mosquito bite. After having been diagnosed of malaria by a community health worker, he will be given effective treatment and make a full recovery. It will be the last case of malaria in Asia Pacific.
This is not a fantasy, but a tangible moment within our grasp.