Wednesday, February 11, 2026

Up to $200K in grants available to Social Enterprises in Victoria

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Up to $200K in a new program is being made available via a combination of a grant and low interest loan to social enterprises in Victoria. Low interest (2.5%) is available to help meet growth goals.

The Victorian government hopes to stimulate job creation, impact climate change in a region known for high air-conditioning usage during its long hot summers and implement innovative urban trash collection systems.

The program is the brainchild of the Victorian Government through Sustainability Victoria, a government agency that helps delivers solutions on waste and resource management, and the Foresters Group, a financial services company which specializes in loans to individuals, social enterprises and non-profit organizations.

Source: Sustainability Victoria

India impact investing market might reach $8B by 2025

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Impact investing in India, ground zero for impact investing, is growing exponentially and is projected to reach $8B in 10 years, in a region that has 63% of world’s poor (ADB), 27% of world’s GDP (IMF) and receives more than half 53% of impact investments (GIIN).

***

“India is one of the world’s biggest markets for impact investing, given the nation’s many pressing social needs and an abundance of global capital. Assuming a growth of 20-24% based on global rates and strong growth of underlying sectors, we estimate that India’s impact investing sector could absorb $6-8 billion of capital annually by 2025, provided some critical barriers are addressed by the industry and the government,” said Toshan Tamhane, senior partner at the global consulting firm of Mckinsey.

Impact investments in India are also generating strong returns for investors, according to McKinsey, with median returns ranging between 10-12% and up to 34% for top deals.  And drawing keen partners such as US-based former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to work on, for example, technology-driven social projects such as e-health, e-agriculture and epayment banking to serve consumers at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

Source: Reuters

India-based Lok Capital builds a third $100M Impact Fund

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Impact Investor Lok Capital, a private equity and venture capital arm of Lok Foundation, has raised a third fund of $80 to $100 million, which it will use to make at least six investments in the coming year in 2017.

The third fund will focus on growth-stage investments in financial services, healthcare and agriculture—with 70-75% of it going into financial services.

Promise of Good Returns

The firm has a terrific track record.  It fully liquidated its first $22 million impact investment fund, with an IRR of 15% in dollar terms. And its second fund is currently tracking 28% return in dollar terms, 75% of which has already been returned to investors.

Founded in 2004 by Rajiv B. Lall, Vishal Mehta (pictured above) and Donald Peck, the Indian-based firm focuses on sectors such as financial services, financial inclusion, healthcare and agriculture.  The Indian impact investment firm operates in a market that McKinsey estimates at $4B today and projects will double to $8B by 2025.

Source: LiveMint

Inaugural CECP Report Estimates Corporate Impact Investment Market at $2.4B

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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A pilot study recently released by CECP found that a third of large corporations (S&P) invest approximately US$2.4B each year in programs designed to achieve social impact and financial returns. The study, Investing with Purpose, is the first time that corporate’s role in impact investing has been analyzed in detail.

Six Approaches Corporate Venture Capital Uses

The report described six ways that large corporations companies have been organizing to deliver impact investing.

The six approaches are: Direct, Self-Managed, Third-Party (through a Syndicate or an LP), Strategic Alliance (e.g. Joint Venture with a Social Enterprise), Accelerators, or Corporate Foundations.

  1. Direct Investments – when a company funds from its own balance sheet for a social enterprise.
  2. Self-Managed Funds – when a company creates a captive fund or investment company.
  3. Third-Party Funds – when a company makes investments through a syndicate or a fund as a limited partner.
  4. Strategic Alliances – when two companies join together for strategic non-financial partnerships and/or joint ventures with social enterprises.
  5. Accelerators and Incubators – when a company provides support, such as mentorship, office space or access to funding networks for a specific project or venture.
  6. Corporate Foundations – when the charitable foundation of a company provides working capital through loans, loan guarantees, or equity investments often called program related investments, to an organization.

Close to half of CECP survey participants responded that they utilize approach #2 – Self-Managed Funds – or corporate venture capital (CVC) and drive impact through innovation.

Network technology giant Cisco, for example, in 2009 invested US$250 thousand in Husk Power systems for rural electricity in India through its internal VC unit called Cisco Investments.

Also Intel Capital, since 1991, is said to have invested over $9 billion in 1,000 companies in over 40 countries.

In 2015, CVCs invested US$7.5 billion out of total $51 billion or just over 11% of total US Venture backed funding. (ImpactVC)

CECP’s study methodology involved extensive review of existing literature and a 25-question survey of 100 selected companies, including in addition to Intel and Cisco mentioned above, Target, JPMorgan Chase, Price Waterhouse Coopers and 3M.

Source: CECP, 2016 © CECP

Oregon-based Climate Trust Seeds a $5.5M Carbon Investment Fund

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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In October, The Climate Trust, a mission-driven nonprofit based in Portland, Oregon that specializes in conservation finance for climate projects, secured a $5.5M Program-Related Investment (PRI) from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation to seed their first-of-its-kind carbon investment fund.

Impact

The $5.5M Fund is expected to help catalyze the development of four anaerobic digesters, three forestry projects and one grassland conservation program.   978,157 mtCO2e is projected to be reduced in ten years, a big impact win from a conservation perspective as this will help ensure sustainable management and greatly improve water and air quality in US domestic lands.

The non-profit is also an unceasingly active advocate for climate issues, outlining a number of broad trends with the incoming US administration, among them:

  • States, cities and regions will lead commitments to continue the debate on climate change
  • Forward-thinking enterprises and foundations will lead investment and financing efforts
  • Litigation and courts debating climate will be busier
  • Private industry and private equity will step in to will fulfill the Paris accord’s climate promise

Sources: TriplePundit, Ecosystem Marketplace

Debating Real Impact

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Is it a fair question or expectation that at the end of the day, firms like Goldman Sachs or JPMorgan value social impact more than financial returns? Can we really believe that funds would put social impact returns above their fiduciary duty to produce consistent positive financial returns to their shareholders?

And what would these mean as more capital and dollars continue to shift away from non-profits and philanthropy to impact investing funds? “A philanthropic dollar in a nonprofit social enterprise produces an internal financial return that can be recycled again and again to multiply impact. An impact investment dollar demands an eventual exit for itself and its aggregated returns, regardless of whether any true impact was created in the first place. A better deal for the investor, perhaps, but not for impact,” Kevin Lynch, Social Enterprise Alliance CEO, suggests.

These are important questions to consider, and which suggest the need for more rigor in developing standardized impact metrics, social impact scoring systems and building systems for measuring accountability.

More on Kevin Lynch’s essay on the Huffington Post.

African Innovators Recognized by Royal Academy of Engineering Prize

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-
Africa Innovators

A new generation of innovators from Africa were shortlisted in November for the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation.

Among technologies shortlisted was one aiming to revive the natural fibre market and help it compete with synthetic materials.

Others enable environmentally-friendly rock drilling for small scale mining, and the electrification of fleets of tuk-tuks in African cities via a network of off-grid charging stations.

Software innovations in the shortlist include apps to make public transport safer, cut ambulance response times during emergencies, give academics a network through which to share knowledge and connect students to their perfect tutor.

***

“The shortlisted candidates represent eight (8) African countries:

  • Achiri Arnold Nji from Cameroon with Safe Travel, a mobile app that helps prevent public transport accidents,
  • Alex Makalliwa from Kenya with an electric Tuk-Tuk off-grid charging network,
  • Aline Okello from Mozambique with a rainwater harvesting app to improve access to rain harvesting equipment,
  • Andre Nel from South Africa with Green Tower, a solar energy micro-grid boiler,
  • Brian Turyabagye from Uganda with Mamaope, a biomedical jacket that diagnoses pneumonia,
  • Edwin Inganji from Kenya with the Usalama app, which boosts the effectiveness of community policing and speeds up emergency services’ reaction times,
  • Fredrick Ouko from Kenya with Riziki Source, an online platform that connects people with disabilities to jobs,
  • Godwin Benson from Nigeria with Tuteria, a peer-to-peer platform that connects students to tutors,
  • Hindu Nabulumba from Uganda with the Yaaka Network, which connects students, academics and trainers on a single social network,
  • James van der Walt from South Africa with the Solar Turtle, a self-contained, off-grid power utility,
  • Joel King’ori Kariuki from Kenya with a sisal decorticator that speeds up natural fibre production to help it compete with synthetic fibres,
  • Kevin Gacheru from Kenya with the Mkononi Tank Monitoring System to reduce water wastage,
  • Lawrence Ojok from Tanzania with the Green Rock Drill, an environmentally friendly drill for small-scale mining,
  • Peter Mbiria from Kenya with the E-Con Wheelchair, an all-terrain wheelchair that allows users to stand upright, climb stairs and self-navigate,
  • Sesinam Dagadu from Ghana with CodeRed, a health management and disease surveillance app that improves emergency response times from ambulances and police,
  • Wilfred Leslie Owen from South Africa with an automated solar cooker that tracks the sun and has built-in temperature and timing controls.”

Source: AWP Network

Philippine Startup Building a Digital Payments and Credit Infrastructure

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
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Ayannah Founder Mikko Perez

“The end goal is to build out the largest digital payment network in the Philippines,” Mikko Perez of Ayannah, a startup that is focused on eliminating financial exclusion in the Philippines.

Leveraging Network Effect

Ayannah hopes to build off the collection/payments network it’s already established and bring a range of new products like JuanCredit, a risk-based credit scoring system for the unbanked, to populations that have been excluded from the traditional banking system.

The system will use deep learning to analyze Ayannah’s users’ transactions to identify potential new customers for banks, lenders and insurers. This could bring unprecedented access to financial products for millions of Filipino people who were previously excluded from the system.

In December, it raised US$1M Singapore-based fintech VC Life.SREDA, Silicon Valley VC 500 Startups, London-based fintech VC Blue Compass and other investors.  In earlier rounds, it raised funds from Tokyo-based GREE Ventures​, Wavemaker Labs Pte. Ltd., Golden Gate Ventures Incubator Annex Pte. Ltd., IMJ Investment Partners Pte. Ltd. and Beenos Asia.

Ayannah operates Sendah, an online gift remittance and payments platform that enables Filipinos overseas “a better way to send” products to their families in the Philippines, and SendahDirect, its payment processing platform that allows unbanked customers to perform money transfers and bill payments, or send prepaid microinsurance credits and mobile phone load credits.

Ayannah now services 10 million customers offline and digitally and has transferred  US$150M in remittances, since its launch in October 2010.

Source: Forbes

Estonian-based Koda’s Eco-friendly House is Brilliant

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-

Designed by the Kodasema team based in Estonia, Koda is made from sustainable materials which can be reused later and uses smart tech like LED lighting, quadruple-glazed windows and vacuum insulation to leverage the sun and minimize Co2 footprint.

Value Proposition

The prefab is low impact, portable and inexpensive, concrete, solar-powered that is designed to move with its owners.  The prefab can be assembled in less than seven hours, and disassembled in four days.

The furnished house will come in three different models: “Koda for Living,” “Koda for Studying,” and “Koda for Working.” They will function as homes, classrooms, and offices respectively, according to Kodasema’s cofounder, Taavi Jakobson.

150 Kodas will become available to order online in Estonia starting in late 2017, with prices likely starting at just over US$130,000.

Koda is one of a growing trend of small, portable prefab homes that are priced between $60 to $360 per square feet.  Most take between 4 weeks to 6 months of assembly and are LEED certified and come with many renewable energy features.

Sources: Techly, ToughNickel, Dezeen

SafetyNet takes the crown at Startup Weekend Ottawa

By
Gino Baltazar, MS Finance
-

Ottawa-based Safety Net won the Startup Weekend event last weekend.  The startup is attempting to solve the problem of preventable deaths in emergency rooms using warning wristbands that monitor key body functions.

Doctor Feedback was Key

Its team reached out to doctors who provided enthusiastic feedback and presented a convincing business case for how the startup could make money through selling the hardware and a subscription maintenance service. Ottawa’s event took place alongside nearly 200 other startup weekends around the world capping Global Entrepreneurship Week.

***

“I almost didn’t go,” says Alex Steeves, who originally pitched the idea for Safety Net.

He says he finished up some work on Friday and decided to walk over 20 minutes before the event started. “I knew nothing about it.”

Steeves says it was only after arriving there that he realized participants were giving 60-second pitches. On a whim, he pitched a low-cost wearable that would allow users to check-in with friends and family in an emergency, taking inspiration from the Syrian refugee crisis and the recent Laurier bridge collapse in Ottawa.

The idea was a popular one, and a five-person team joined around him to found the company. After that, though, the company pivoted significantly, eventually coming up with a cloud-enabled smartband that could track heart rate and wait times so as to avoid casualties while patients wait for attention in the emergency room.

“That was the biggest thing I learned, how to pivot.” Steeves says. “We had a team motto: ‘Change the plan, not the goal.’”

The team was essential to the startup’s success, Steeves adds. While he’s heard the cliche of a “team effort” in the past, he believes that without the participation of each of his four co-founders, Safety Net would not have been possible.

“It’s amazing what you can do when you take five passionate strangers, put them into a room, and see them co-mingle and somehow come to a fantastic outlook and product,” Steeves says.

Source: Epoch Times, Ottawa Business Journal

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