Jan 26 2017

Impact investment firm Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group said on Wednesday it has raised $25 million (about Rs 170 crore) in an equity funding round led by Triodos Investment Management and Shell Foundation.

The investment arm of European lender Triodos Bank invested $15 million and the Shell Group’s charity arm put the remaining amount, Aavishkaar said in a statement. It added that it will use the capital to consolidate and expand its bouquet of ecosystem building businesses.

Aavishkaar founder Vineet Rai said that the firm is helping entrepreneurs address challenges around job creation, health, energy and financial inclusion and that entrepreneurs and businesses can make a substantial contribution in addressing poverty and hunger.

Founded in 2002, Aavishkaar enables entrepreneurs through equity funds, venture debt, microfinance lending, investment banking intermediation, consulting, research and access to global networks. The group has assets under management of about $400 million and has almost 2,500 team members on three continents.

Impact investment-focussed Aavishkaar-Intellecap group on Tuesday announced an equity fund raise of $25 million led by Triodos Investment Management, the investment arm of European lender Triodos Bank and Shell Foundation, an independent charity established by the oil giant, Shell Group.

The investment – $15 million from Triodos and $10 million from Shell – will be infused in the parent company, enabling Aavishkaar-Intellecap to expand its ecosystem, building services and businesses across the globe. “The funds will allow us to expand our investment in India and also geographically expand to Africa and Southeast Asia, our target markets,” explained the group’s founder Vineet Rai.

Aaavishkaar-Intellecap currently has $400 million in assets under management and a team of 2,500 members spread across Asia, Africa and the Americas. Founded in 2002, the group helps entrepreneurs who work to solve challenging global problems like poverty alleviation, health care, education, energy issues and the like, scale their businesses by providing equity, debt and advisory services. “Over the next 8-10 years, we want to scale from roughly half a billion dollars under assets that we manage to a billion dollars,” said Rai, pointing out that India, in particular, offered scale and impact in the right quantum. “We have no dearth of quality entrepreneurs, so with the right capital, we can create scalable businesses in challenging areas which people believe are the government’s domain.” Rai is also looking to deploy the fresh funds to hire “significant senior leadership” who will be able to manage the expanded scale of operations.

“At Triodos, we believe it is essential to drive changes in society which will help us achieve sustainable development goals. We were very happy with the fact that in Aavishkaar-Intellecap we found a partner that has a very nicely aligned vision and strategy to building an ecosystem and achieving those goals,” said Dirk Elsen, director emerging markets at Triodos Investment Management, adding that this was an extension of a partnership that started out two years ago when Triodos got involved with Aavishkaar-Intellecap’s debt business.

Jan 25 2017

NEW DELHI: The Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group has raised $25 million (about Rs 166.3 crore) from two new investors, as the impact investing-to-financial advisory services group looks to expand its bouquet of services along with its presence outside Asia.

The Group has raised $15 million in equity financing from Triodos Investment Management, the investment arm of European lender Triodos Bank, and an additional $10 million from the Shell Foundation, the independent charity established by the Shell Group.

Both investors have taken a minority stake in the company. Proceeds from the transaction, raised at the holding-company level, will be used by the Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group to significantly scale its operations, provide support and scale to its debt businesses and to ensure Intellecap’s advisory business is replicated, particularly, in Africa, a growing geographical focus for the company.

“We will be focusing on Asia and Africa over the next 8-10 years. We intend to scale ourselves up by almost 10 times over this same period, and intend to take $3.5 billion of assets, which will be essentially used to support entrepreneurs in these geographies,” Vineet Rai, founder, Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group, told ET.

Jan 25 2017

Mumbai: Impact investing-focused Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group has raised $25 million (approximately Rs170 crore) in equity funding led by Triodos Investment Management, the investment arm of European lender Triodos Bank, and Shell Foundation, an independent charity established by the Shell Group.

Triodos has invested $15 million in the group and Shell has contributed $10 million.

Founded in 2002, the Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group offers range of financial products to entrepreneurs working to solve problems at the bottom of the pyramid, including equity funds, a venture debt vehicle, microfinance lending, investment banking services, consulting, research and access to global networks.

The group operates its equity funds business through Aavishkaar Venture Management Services; investment banking, consulting and research through Intellecap; extending working capital and business loans to small and medium enterprises through Intellecash, venture debt through Intellecap and microfinance lending through Arohan.

Across its various equity funds and debt businesses, the group has over $400 million in assets under management, with 2,500 team members across Asia, Africa and the Americas.

Jan 25 2017

The Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group, an impact investor, on Tuesday announced raising $25 million, led by Triodos Investment Management, the investment arm of European lender Triodos Bank, and Shell Foundation, an independent charity established by the Shell Group.

Triodos has invested $15 million while Shell has contributed $10 million in this equity round. The investment will be infused in the parent company and will enable the group to consolidate and expand its bouquet of ecosystem building initiatives/businesses across the globe, the impact investor said in a press …

Jan 25 2017

The Aavishkaar-Intellecap Gro-up, an impact investing firm, has raised an equity round of $25 million led by Triodos Investment Management, the investment arm of European lender Triodos Bank and Shell Foundation, an independent charity established by the Shell Group.

Triodos has invested $15 million while Shell has contributed $10 million of the total capital raised. The investment will be infused in the parent company to enable the group to consolidate and expand its bouquet of ecosystem building initiatives/businesses across the globe.

Founded in 2002, the Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group has Assets under Management of over $400 million with over 2,500 team members spread across three continents – Asia, Africa and Americas. It has three lines of business under the group – equity investments under Aavishkaar, advisory Services under Intellecap and debt funding vehicles under Arohan – IntelleGrow and IntelleCash.

On the capital raising, Vineet Rai, founder, Aavishkaar–Intellecap Group said, “As the world chases ambitious Social Development Goals, Aavishkaar-Intellecap Group’s contribution as entrepreneurial ecosystem builders would be seminal in unleashing the entrepreneurial energy toward some of the core challenges around Employment, Health, and Energy & Financial Inclusion that the world desires to address.”

Jan 19 2017

Food wars triggered by scarcity and price of food are likely by 2050 unless we change how food is produced, processed, and supplied

Most major wars fought in the last two centuries have been focused on control of precious resources like minerals, oil, and land. This picture has started to shift in the past few years, with armed conflict increasingly focused on control over depleting water resources and by association food. Climate change-linked droughts in Northern Africa and Sahel, and the resulting shortage of food is one of the triggers behind the European refugee crisis. As these populations relocate to other areas, competition for scarce resources intensifies and results in conflict against the “others” – as we have seen in Western Europe. This is by no means an isolated trend, but the beginning of a pattern we can expect to see in India as well. By 2050, the India’s population will reach 1.7 billion people, creating the most populated country in the world. Food demand will increase by 70%, and is already lagging domestic food production.

Growing prosperity coupled with changes in food patterns will mean that much of this demand will be for water intensive food commodities such as meat. Output of animal products has already overtaken cereals, and accounts for one-third of all agricultural output. Eventually we will reach a tipping point when the demand for meat can no longer be met without shifting agricultural land towards cultivation for cattle, or importing meat. Unfortunately, growing prosperity will walk hand-in-hand with growing inequity – leaving those who live on less than $5 a day unable to afford high-protein diets with requisite micronutrients. If agriculture and food production continues its “business as usual trajectory”, low income and vulnerable communities will likely only be able to access carbohydrates as staple foods. We are already seeing the impact of carbohydrate-rich foods on these communities in terms of higher prevalence of chronic diseases such as diabetes and hypertension. As diets worsen the prevalence of these diseases will continue to increase, resulting in a vicious cycle which wipes out economic prosperity gains because of increased healthcare expenditure, and in-turn curtails spend on healthier food options. Solutions of the past decade such as high quality inputs and farm mechanization will start to prove insufficient in our quest to feed more and more people healthy diets at affordable prices.

Disruption is imminent in the next decade across value chains and commodities; the future is likely to be one of abundance rather than scarcity

So does this mean the future is bleak? We think not. Human history is a story of triumphs of ingenuity in how food is grown, processed, and distributed. From shifting cultivation, to fixed and specialized farming, to the industrial revolution, and finally the green revolution in India – every few generations we see a leap in technologies that pivot eras of scarcity into eras of abundance. The next pivot is coming, and it is unlike anything we have ever seen before. As exponential technologies such as IoT, machine learning, and robotics commercialize and converge; we will see fundamental shifts in terms of where food is grown, what food is grown, who grows it, and what we expect from it.

Dec 13 2016

Aspada Investment Company has made an undisclosed investment in Noida-based Arya Collateral Warehousing Services Private Limited.

Arya provides a range of post-harvest agriculture value chain services to small hold farmers, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs), banks, agro processors and corporate end-users in India. These services include aggregation, collateral management, professional warehousing and facilitation of financial and market linkages.

With Aspada’s investment, Arya will extend its reach to small hold farmers and FPOs in primary markets not served by existing companies, and offer warehousing services as well as short term financing through partnerships with banks and NBFCs.

Prasanna Rao, Managing Director, Arya, said, “Aspada has significant experience in investing in India’s supply chain and agricultural logistics sectors. Their investment will allow us to scale significantly in the primary markets where the penetration of warehousing as well as availability of finance for post-harvest storage of commodities is very low.”

Anand Chandra, Executive Director, Arya, said, “Over the next 24 months we will look to go deeper in underserved geographies, look to invest in post-harvest infrastructure and launch innovative financial products to increase the participation of small hold farmers and their institutions in the agricultural value chain.”

Kushal Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer, Aspada, said, “The absence of storage infrastructure and the lack of availability of finance and market linkages in primary markets are among the biggest challenges in Indian agriculture. Arya is a key addition to Aspada’s agriculture portfolio and will play a significant role in reducing wastage, managing the effects of volatile commodity markets on farmer producer organizations, and improving small farmer realizations.”Prasanna Rao, Managing Director, Arya, said,

Nov 14 2016

Nisha Dutt’s story is one of serendipity and hard work. She joined Intellecap as a Senior Manager in Consulting and Research in 2009. Within six years, she became the CEO of the company. As the CEO, she helps guide the global positioning of the business.

Intellecap provides innovative business solutions that help build and scale profitable and sustainable enterprises dedicated to social and environmental change.

Here are some excerpts from my chat with Nisha.

From India to USA and back

With early years spent in government schools in India, Nisha, 39, moved to the US in 1999 to pursue her Industrial Engineering from Oklahoma State University and MBA from Ohio State University. “I come from the armed forces, and my mother was a businesswoman, so the dual values of discipline and business acumen were the lessons I had learnt at home. As the youngest, I grew up with a fair amount of freedom. The empowerment and freedom to choose coupled with a strong sense of discipline is something I treasure and believe it has laid the stepping stones to the many risks I have taken.”

Jul 22 2016

Sri Lanka has a significant low-income population segment whose financial needs are served by an estimated 14,000 financial institutions in the country, which directly or indirectly provide microcredit products. However, a majority of these financial institutions are either financial NGOs, not-for-profits or organizations that follow a local cooperative structure. For-profit formal sector microfinance institutions are few, and the market is dominated by five or six players that serve the majority of the low-income customer segment. There is limited industry research on the country’s microfinance sector, and Intellecap has attempted to bridge this gap by presenting the following market opportunities and growth strategies, based on conversations with leading practitioners, policy makers and capital providers immersed in the Sri Lankan market.

STRATEGIES FOR MARKET GROWTH IN SRI LANKA

Among South Asian countries, Sri Lanka is unique in terms of population distribution by income, with a majority of its households in the low-income and middle-income segments rather than the lowest (or poorest) segment (Figure 1). As per our assessment, the country’s 2.6 million low-income households (which we’ve termed the aspirers) represent the target customer segment for MFIs in Sri Lanka. While market penetration data for the existing microfinance institutions (MFIs) and non-bank financial companies (NBFCs) in Sri Lanka is not readily available, based on Intellecap’s analysis, the total number of customers served by the five largest MFIs/NBFCs is estimated to be around 1.3 million customers. Meanwhile, the Lanka Microfinance Practitioners’ Association estimates the total number of customers served by 24 smaller MFIs in the country to be nearly 0.7 million.