India is globally regarded as a major hub for impact investing, with a highly evolved ecosystem comprising diverse stakeholders, well regarded successes in BoP entrepreneurship, pioneering investors, and a wide array of enterprise enablers. This study, conducted by Intellecap, provides a ring side view of the development of this investing ecosystem. It draws out some of the main influences around the sector’s emergence and unique characteristics, the dominant approach to investing, and the key areas of focus for the sector going forward.

Four key characteristics explain the India impact investing story: Innovations Rooted in Local Context; Investing that adopts an Entrepreneur led Approach; Ecosystem Focused on Accountability; and Impact Investors with the Ability to Unlock Mainstream Capital. Venture approach to investing is the dominant impact investing approach in India.

An analysis of impact investment trends from the year 2000 shows that USD $ 1.6 billion of capital has been invested in 220+ impact enterprises across India. It also reveals that around 60% of total impact investments have been made in just 15 enterprises, and that Healthcare, agri-business and clean energy are the leading sectors outside of financial inclusion, attracting investments of USD $ 341 million.