India is a nation of diverse cultures, religions and languages. Yet, there are social issues that pervade all of India. In response, Social Enterprises (SEs) are pioneering a variety of innovative approaches to address these issues.
Each year Impact Partners holds showcases to allow SEs to present their business to a room of investors to raise investment capital to scale their successful businesses. On 19th March, IIX held a showcase for SEs from India at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery. We also held an event on 18th March for BANSEA (Business Angel Network Southeast Asia) members to introduce these SEs to a broad network.
Both events led to lively discussions between the entrepreneurs and investors. This SE Showcase follows on from the highly successful Colours of India showcase we held last year at which investors funded two of the participating SEs – Kinara Capital and Frontier Markets. We hope that this year we can beat that record!
The enterprises that presented came from a variety of sectors:
Healthcare
This enterprise provides basic primary healthcare and insurance services on a subscription basis to low income consumers. It currently serves more than 30 schools and has 4,000 subscribers.
Micro grids
This enterprise builds, owns, and operates solar micro grids in Uttar Pradesh, serving rural off-grid villages with high quality, dependable lighting for 7 hours each night and mobile phone charging services. The enterprise currently has 20,000 customers which impacts 100,000 people.
Education
This enterprise provides a full range of services to schools to improve learning outcomes and operational efficiencies. Through its curriculum, training, and management support, the enterprise addresses the gaps in the low cost private schools (“LCPS”) segment and currently, provides its services to 2 schools in Hyderabad, serving over 1,500 students.
Cook-stoves
This enterprise designs, manufactures and distributes fuel-efficient, clean-burning cook stoves. Its stoves are 50% more fuel-efficient and emit 60% less harmful smoke than traditional stoves. The enterprise has already sold 10,000 stoves (including 882 large capacity institutional stoves), that are serving 250,000 people.
Hygiene products
This enterprise works on making menstrual hygiene products accessible and available to BOP consumers at an affordable cost through a village level micro enterprise production model and the right product for the market.
Waste management
This enterprise environmentally processes municipal waste to create compost which it sells to farmers. The state of Andhra Pradesh has asked the company to start environmentally processing waste in 44 municipalities which will make the company one of the largest waste management companies in India.
Dharisha Mirando
Corporate Finance, IIX