Publication database

Based on interviews with movers and shapers involved in off-grid electrification projects in Africa and Asia this paper looks at how standalone electricity and mini-grids can increase access to electricity. It opportunities and challenges and comes up with a five-point plan to accelerate electrification.

This case study presents a business model of the Indonesian company Rajawali, which integrates Indonesian taxi drivers as Business Partners in the core activities of its subsidiary Express Taxi. By providing access to capital and training Express Taxi redefined the traditional business model between large transport companies and drivers’ groups. The case examines the challenges and opportunities of such a partnership in the context of income generation for the poor and reliability and safety for the general public.

This report discusses "system leadership" needed to tackle global challenges like food security, climate change, job creation, and gender parity. System leadership can help align the efforts of diverse stakeholders in order to accelerate this process, and ensure that it delivers more sustainable, inclusive business growth and human development.

The Entrepreneurship Database Program at Emory University leverages relationships with a growing number of accelerator programs to collect systematic data from entrepreneurs who apply to and participate in accelerator programs. This report summarizes application data collected from entrepreneurs who participated in the programs during 2013, 2014, 2015 and early 2016. It covers aspects like e.g. venture performance indicators, country of operations, sectors and impact objectives, gender or profit margin aspirations.

This article describes and ranks 10 lessons that Acumen has learned while working to tackle global poverty. The lessons learned include: 'dignity is more important to the human spirit than wealth'; and that 'neither grants nor markets alone will solve the problems of poverty'.

This report details the impact of the Bamboo Finance portfolio of 46 companies across 30 countries. Bamboo Finance is a commercial private equity firm specialising in investing in business models that benefit low-income communities in emerging markets.

This annual survey provides the latest insight into investor perceptions and a number of key market variables such as types of investors, the number and size of investments made, target returns, and impact measurement practices. This “State of the Market” analysis explores how investments continue to be made across different geographies, a range of sectors, and multiple asset classes, signalling continued market growth and an increasing interest in impact investing opportunities.

The 2020 Annual Impact Investor Survey provides a comprehensive overview of the impact investing market. This edition captures data from 294 of the world’s leading impact investors who collectively manage USD 404 billion of impact investing assets, representing an important subset of the USD 715 billion global impact investing market. The report looks at respondents’ investment activity during 2019 and their plans for 2020, market developments over the past decade, and challenges facing the market going forward. Respondents also shared insights on how Covid-19 might affect their activities.

IIC releases an annual “Year in Retrospect" publication that throws light on investment trends and emerging market developments across key impact sectors such as Financial Inclusion, Agriculture, Healthcare, Technology for Development and Climate-tech. Their research highlights that 2021 has proven to be a strong year for the Indian impact sector, with more than 300 impact focussed enterprises raising $7 Bn in capital. While investment activity was robust across sectors as well as the stage of development of the enterprise, several late-stage companies have raised significant amounts of capital leading to a 135% growth in overall capital raised in 2021 vis a vis 2020.

Produced by Magnitt, Wa’ed sponsors the 2021 MENA VC Impact Investment Report, which tries to shed some light on the VC impact investment ecosystem in MENA since 2016. The report reveals that $444m was invested across 403 deals by impact-driven startups across the region since 2016. This accounts for 7% of all venture capital (VC) deployed in MENA startups between 2016 and the third quarter of 2021. The information gathered in the report aims to enable a more informed conversation on this space between stakeholders, and to attract greater investment and support for impact-driven sectors and startups.