Mumbai: Impact investing firms, which invest to deliver social benefits alongside financial returns, have put $1.6 billion (around Rs.9,600 crore) into India since 2000, mostly in companies in sectors such as healthcare, micro-finance, and financial inclusion, according to Intellecap, a social advisory and investment banking services firm.

The number of foreign investors looking to invest in the social sector has increased, while domestic investors show a reluctance to contribute to impact investing funds, said Nisha Dutt, director, consulting and research at Intellecap, which released a report on the matter at the Sankalp Unconvention Summit 2014, Asia’s largest social enterprise platform, last week.

“There is a lot of capital that has started coming in and once the money is coming in it has to get deployed; it is the coming of age of this industry,” said Dutt.