Our survey results: Understanding the challenges energy enterprises face in emerging economies

Invested Development and GVEP International recently conducted a survey in collaboration with Power Africa and UN Foundation’s Energy Access Practitioner Network to investigate the challenges that energy enterprises experience in emerging markets. Of course, company financing is a big issue, but we wanted to dig deeper into manufacturing, human resources, consumer financing, and sales. The goal was to identify the types of support products and services that the industry can provide to move the needle … read more

Words of Wisdom for Early-Stage Startups Creating Financial Projections

Editor’s Note: Special thanks to our financial analyst and Excel whiz Lee Carter for his work on this post. 

Startup projections come in all shapes and sizes. At Invested Development, we have seen 5-year expected revenues ranging from less than $300,000 to over $10 billion. One company might expect to make money selling to less than 10 customers for its entire lifetime, and another will expect to sell to over 250 million users by the … read more

Insights for Tech Startups in Emerging Markets

One of the ways the technology startups can maximize their social impact and achieve success is by learning from the mistakes and successes of other organizations. Below are a few pieces of advice, opportunities, and lessons learned that startups should keep in mind.

An Inside Look At Running a Cleantech Startup in India” by Rupesh Shah on GreenBiz
In order to ensure that a startup is moving in the correct direction, it is … read more

Startup challenges in emerging markets

This week, we read several articles discussing the challenges that early stage startups and investors face in emerging markets.

Distribution equals development:  Announcing the D-Prize” by Andrew Youn, Founder and Director of One Acre Fund on Skoll World Forum
Distribution is one of the biggest challenges that companies working in emerging markets face. Even the most innovative and affordable technologies may struggle to find their way into the hands of the customers who … read more

Tech Startups and Entrepreneurs

Today we’re featuring news on tech startups and entrepreneurs in emerging markets.

Novel Energy Storage to Chill Milk in Rural India” by Martin LaMonica on MIT Technology Review
Our portfolio company Promethean Power revealed good news last week: after years of technology iterations and a move to India, Promethean signed a contract with Hatsun, India’s largest private dairy, for 50 rapid milk chillers. This comes along with a new joint venture and a … read more

Weekly Review November 3-9: Energy Startups and Entrepreneurial Initiatives

Several energy startups and entrepreneurial initiatives caught our attention this week. Here’s the round up of what we found intriguing and exciting.

Peter Thiel, Khosla, Bill Gates back air energy storage startup LightSail” by Katie Fehrenbacher on GigaOM
Several investors have backed LightSail in a $37.3 million series D round. LightSail has designed a next-gen compressed air energy storage technology, which is essentially an air-based battery with twice the efficiency of its predecessors. … read more