Posted on by Miguel Granier

Impact investing

This weekly review covers the ever-growing and nascent impact investing sector.

“Impact Investing for the New Economy: People” by Atlee McFellin on Triple Pundit
Impact investing is different from the green movement of years past. The new mindset of investing for impact emphasizes a dual focus on sustainability and well being for both the environment and people. Emerging investment and lending models, such as our own Impact Factoring Fund, are more frequently helping startups grow while providing more environmentally sustainable products and services.

“Village Capital:  Lessons Learned from our First 15 Programs” by Ross Baird on Next Billion
Village Capital Boston is the 15th Village Capital program around the world. The upcoming finale in March will be coordinated with SOCAP: Soul, which is coming to our hometown on March 9th. After fifteen programs, Ross and his team have learned many valuable lessons about seed-stage entrepreneurs and what they need to be successful. Notably, seed-stage accelerators that have a sharp sector focus and help startups find customers will produce the most successful startups.

“Bridge Building in Impact Investing” on Calvert Foundation Blog
What are the biggest barriers to growth for impact investing? Calvert Foundation recently brainstormed this question with a group of investors at the Council on Foundations Family Philanthropy Conference. They agreed that we need a bridge between traditional investment distribution channels and impact investing products. Efforts to standardize term sheets and impact metrics will result in significant gains in this effort.

 “10 Things We Really Want to Know About a BoP Startup” by Will Poole on Unitus Seed Fund Blog
Every impact investor has its own criteria, sector focus, and benchmarks for impact and financial performance.  For those focusing on BoP customers and business, you know that there are additional barriers to overcome beyond what your peers face in developed markets. In a recent blog post, Unitus Seed Fund went over the ten common things that investors really want to know about a BoP startup.  Head over to the blog to check them out.

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