Portfolio Delivers 231% Year over Year Growth in Low-Income Impact
25 February 2016, Bangalore: Unitus Ventures, India’s leading seed stage impact investor, released its annual fund and portfolio impact report. Since 2013, the fund has made a total of 23 investments across sectors including Education, Healthcare, Financial Technology, Agriculture, Retail and Ecommerce, Mobile and Consumer. Our new impact report shows doubling of the total portfolio reach, touching more than 6.5 lakh (650,000) low-income lives across 22 states in India.
Doing Well by Doing Good: According to the Global Impact Investing Network, the market for impact capital is currently $60B and is expected to reach $2 trillion over the next 10 years.
In India, there has been a shift of mindset from pure not-for-profit enterprises to establishing sustainable and scalable market-based models to tackle low-income populations’ most pressing needs. These models focus on making the markets more inclusive, efficient and competitive such that the people at the base of the economic pyramid can get affordable products and services and be paid fair wages. At Unitus Ventures, we see a rise in the number of entrepreneurs using scalable market-based innovations to tackle the real issues our country faces. These new solutions have impact ingrained in their business models.
As India’s most active seed fund supporting startups innovating for the masses we follow a clearly defined methodology of tracking impact generated from our portfolio firms. Unitus looks at three types of impact, all of which are measured at company, sector, and fund levels:
- Scale – We track each portfolio company’s progress towards reaching a goal of touching atleast 100,000 low-income families in 5 years, and/or directly employing up to 1,000 low-income individuals in the same timeframe.
- Financial – We support investee companies getting on the path to financial sustainability through increased revenues and further capital raised.
- Ecosystem – Our goal is that we and every portfolio company benefits from, influences, and improves the functioning of the overall startup ecosystem.
As of 31 December 2015, our latest impact report shows that our portfolio has touched over 6.5 lakh (650,000) “BoP” lives (low-income individuals at the bottom of the economic pyramid) in India, with an impressive 231% growth over 2014. In terms of geographic coverage, our portfolio companies have transformed lives and provided solutions across 22 states of the country, in aggregate.
Apart from investing in our portfolio firms, we work hard to support their efforts to leverage the power of the broader ecosystem of the mentor-advisor network, and most importantly, to receive further growth capital. Half of the Unitus portfolio companies have either already raised follow on funding rounds or are well positioned to do so. Cumulatively, the portfolio has raised additional capital worth 3.38 times Unitus’ original investment.
Unitus Ventures Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Will Poole said, “We believe strongly in accountability and transparency, and are pleased to publish our fourth report on our progress towards delivering scaled and sustainable impact across India via our rapidly growing portfolio.”
About Unitus Ventures
Unitus Ventures is the leading venture seed fund supporting startups innovating for the masses in India. Unitus invests in healthcare, education, mobile & consumer, retail & e-commerce, financial services and agriculture sectors. Founded in 2012, Unitus Ventures is part of the Unitus Group, a premier financial services group operating in India and other emerging markets since 2000. Unitus Ventures is based in Bangalore and Seattle, and is a member of the Capria Network. More about Unitus Ventures >
