Knowledge Items
Elevar Equity: Unitus Equity Fund and Elevar Equity Fund II
Elevar Equity is a thesis based investor focused on generating outstanding investment returns by delivering essential services to disconnected communities underserved by global networks. We back entrepreneurs who deliver innovative market-based solutions that provide valued services to millions of customers. Our entrepreneurs have clear vision, deep customer knowledge and know how to harness market forces […]
Huntington Capital Fund II, L.P.
By Brenna McCallick and Ben Thornley Huntington Capital seeks to be the best-of-class mezzanine fund serving the lower middle market in California and the southwestern United States. This is measured first by return to investors and second by contributions by our portfolio companies to their communities. Huntington was founded in 2000 and is currently operating […]
MicroVest Capital Management: Microvest LLP
MicroVest Capital Management, LLC is a private, for-profit investment adviser dedicated to reducing global poverty by applying a commercial framework to investing. We seek sustainable solutions to poverty by facilitating the flow of international private capital to low-income financial institutions. We believe a commercial approach offers the most effective, scalable, and sustainable solution for generating […]
Impact Investing 2.0: The Way Forward – Insight from 12 Outstanding Funds
This report, released on November 7, 2013, was created in partnership with InSight at Pacific Community Ventures and Impact Assets, and identifies twelve high-performing funds that have seen both financial and social returns on their investments, making an evidence-based case for a new 2.0 era of impact investing. Pacific Community Ventures, Impact Assets, The Fuqua […]
Accelerating Impact Enterprises (Presentation)
Goal: Understand better the evolution, potential, and needs of domestic impact enterprises and to identify philanthropic, private, and public investment opportunities to increase the likelihood of success among impact enterprises and the emerging “impact economy” in the US. By Cathy Clark, Matthew Allen, Bonny Moellenbrock and Chinwe Onyeagoro 2013 Presentation_Clark_AcceleratingImpactEntrepreneurs_2013
A Market Emerges: The Six Dynamics of Impact Investing
By Cathy Clark, Jed Emerson and Ben Thornley Impact investing is taking shape as a distinct activity, with its own unique stakeholder relationships and operational strategies. As dozens of new funds are created explicitly to tackle the world’s most intractable social and environmental problems, including over 60 globally in 2011, the diverse practices of impact […]
The Impact Investor: People and Practices Delivering Exceptional Financial and Social Returns: The Need for Evidence and Engagement
By Cathy Clark, Jed Emerson and Ben Thornley Impact investing is at an inflection point, building off the rich histories of community finance in the United States and other countries, microfinance, international development, and the integration of ESG factors (Environmental, Social and Governance) in institutional portfolios more broadly. For over 30 years, these practices have […]
The Key Drivers of Scaling
By Paul N. Bloom Scaling means achieving more efficient, effective, and widespread adoption of an innovation–getting a huge bang for the bucks invested. Whether you want to become the next Google or the next Habitat for Humanity, scaling is a key goal–one that presents a complex problem. There isn’t a universal secret sauce for scaling […]
How to Take a Social Venture to Scale
By Paul N. Bloom For a social entrepreneur with an innovative solution, the holy grail is scaling it—that is, taking it to a level where the new approach operates efficiently and effectively to achieve significant mitigation of a social problem. Indeed, many are under real pressure to scale as their supporters, not unlike investors in […]
Introduction to the Special Section on Social Entrepreneurship
By Paul N. Bloom Social entrepreneurs are leaders of ventures that employ innovative approaches to address social problems. Their innovations can emerge in the ways the products or services of the venture function; the ways they are distributed and delivered; the advocacy approach of the venture; the ways the venture accumulates and deploys financial, human, […]