Asha Impact

Avanti Learning Centres

Year founded: 2012

Headquarters: Mumbai

Market
The IIT-JEE, the examination to secure admission into India’s premier engineering colleges, is the most sought after and difficult exam in the Indian education system with over 15 million students taking it every year (with a conversion rate of less than 1%). Today, there are over 50,000 coaching centers in India which train students to crack this exam. About 90% of centers are focused on 23 major urban cities and students in remote locations are unable to access such services.

Company
To address this gap, Avanti has pioneered a blended learning model to provide science and mathematics teaching and JEE coaching at affordable prices across India. In a traditional learning model, teachers lecture students for close to 80 percent of their classroom time, often being required to talk from memory, write on a board and engage students. At Avanti, the use of video content and collaborative activities means that teachers focus very little on lecturing and a lot more on working individually with students in the classroom to teach them problem-solving skills.

Impact
Today Avanti has a pan-India presence in 21 cities across eight states. They have taught over 10000 students till date, and their selection rate is twice that of the national average. 44% of Avanti's students cleared JEE Main exam against 16% passing rate for the national average.

THE TEAM
Akshay Saxena - Akshay is the co-founder and President of Avanti. Before Avanti, Akshay served on the founding team of HeartFlow, a venture-backed medical diagnostics company. His prior work experience includes management consulting with the Boston Consulting Group in India, project implementation with the United Nations World Food Programme and fundraising and strategy at The International Save the Children Alliance. Akshay graduated from IIT Bombay in 2006 and is on a leave of absence from the MBA program at the Harvard Business School.

Krishna Ramkumar - Krishna leads Avanti’s operations as CEO. Before Avanti, Krishna was a Senior Associate with the Boston Consulting Group in Mumbai. Krishna graduated from IIT Bombay in 2008 with a degree in Chemistry. At IIT, Krishna was the head of the Institute Student Mentor Program and editor of InsIghT, the student newspaper. He was also awarded the Shankar Dayal Sharma gold medal for overall academic and extra-curricular achievement at IIT Bombay.

Greenway Appliances

Year founded: 2011

Headquarters: Mumbai

Website: www.greenwayappliances.com

Market
Half the planet cooks on smoky indoor fires, endangering the lives of the poor and the environment. Each year, 4.3 million die from inhaling indoor air pollution, adding up to more deaths than malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS combined. Most poor households that rely on inefficient cookstoves and traditional sources of energy, also end up spending a significant proportion of their income on fuel.

Company
Greenway was formed with the vision and ambition to serve developing world consumers with high performance, affordable product based solutions. They deploy technologies into products through the process of user driven co-creation. Their first product, the Greenway Smart Stove, forms a modern replacement for traditional mud stoves, saving 65% fuel and emitting 70% less smoke, thus enabling healthier, happier kitchens. Greenway also works to build market-based distribution networks that are cost efficient and provide for high service efficacy.

Impact
Greenway has sold more than 300,000 units and impacted over a million people to become India’s largest producer of biomass cook stoves. The efficient, affordable and award-winning cook stoves provide a healthier, more convenient cooking experience for families lacking access to modern cooking fuels and replace traditional mud stoves that emit toxic smoke.

THE TEAM
Neha Juneja - Neha serves as Co-founder & CEO of Greenway. She is responsible for driving the overall strategy and future roadmap for Greenway. She is also involved in Corporate Development, partnerships & alliances for building the organization. Neha pursued her B.E. in Production & Industrial Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and then did her MBA from FMS, Delhi.

Ankit Mathur - Ankit is Greenway's Co-founder & CTO. Ankit is continuously involved in developing company's product portfolio, overall technology vision and driving manufacturing processes. He completed his B.E. in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering and then did his MBA from IIM-A.

Grameen Impact

Year founded: 2014

Headquarters: Mumbai

Website: www.grameencapital.in

Market
One of the greatest barriers to scale for social enterprises today is the lack of debt capital. Most lenders typically engage in traditional collateral-based lending to enterprises operating in established industries, with at least three consecutive years of profitable, audited track record. Existing lenders capable of lending to small businesses are often prohibitively slow and complicated to deal with or impose restrictive conditions, making it difficult for fast growing businesses to secure a loan when they need it most. Grameen Impact was established to help such enterprises access loans.

Company
Grameen Capital India is an advisory firm that has raised and syndicated over US$160m across equity and debt primarily for microfinance and financial inclusion clients. Grameen Capital’s venture debt vehicle – Grameen Impact India (GII) provides multiple sources of diverse debt financing to social enterprises in the high impact sectors of financial services, education, healthcare and agriculture. Grameen Impact India will catalyze access to debt capital for Social Enterprises, by leveraging its balance sheet and syndication. Grameen Impact enforces a double-bottom-line agenda in practice, by investing only in Social Enterprises that have demonstrated social responsibility and/or meet social performance requirements and have strong commercial potential.

Impact
Grameen Impact India has been able to provide to high-impact sectors in agriculture, affordable education, affordable healthcare, and financial services. Through its innovative SME lending products, Grameen Impact has impacted over 100,000 individuals and SMEs.

THE TEAM
Royston Braganza - Royston joined Grameen Capital as its CEO in 2007. He currently oversees all aspects of its operations in India. Royston was instrumental in setting up and heading HSBC's Microfinance & Priority Sector business as the Senior Vice President at HSBC. Royston has also worked at Citibank India for over eight years in various assignments across the Consumer Bank and Corporate Bank. He is a board member of Sa-Dhan and a member of the Microfinance Resource Group. Royston holds a Masters in Management Studies from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies.

Janaadhar

Year founded: 2007

Headquarters: Bangalore

Website: www.janaadhar.com

Market
Housing is a basic fundamental human right yet, unfortunately, one fifth's of the world's population continue to live in slums. While India has seen a significant increase in home ownership over the last ten to fifteen years, India still faces a huge challenge regarding the supply of affordable housing with a current gap of over 18 million units.

Company
Janaadhar is one of India's leading affordable housing developers that offers affordable homes in the price range of Rs. 8 Lakhs - Rs. 15 Lakhs to families belonging to lower income groups. Janaadhar promoted by Jana Urban Foundation and Sterling builders, aims to fulfill the home ownership aspirations of every Indian guided by an uncompromising approach to quality, an emphasis on value for money, and transparency in dealings with all stakeholders. By leveraging the power of technology and building strategic partners with state governments, Janaadhar hopes to realize its vision of building homes that shelter dreams of the economically underserved.

Impact
Jalandhar's primary objective is addressing the acute urban housing problem faced by low-income population in urban India by providing them a complete housing solution – well designed, high-quality homes at a moderate price with easily accessible housing finance. Today, Janaadhar has four projects running In Karnataka, Gujarat, and Tamil Nadu, and has built over 600 homes. Through its affordable and high-quality households, within the next five years, Janaadhar aims to impact over 10,000 families with annual incomes of less than Rs 8 lakhs.

THE TEAM
Ramesh Ramanathan - The Founder and Chairman of Janaadhar, Mr. Ramesh Ramanathan is a leading social entrepreneur with a proven track record in addressing many of the issues faced by urban India. Ramesh, who also founded India's largest MFI Janalakshmi Financial Services was nominated as one 250 "Young Global Leaders" by the World economic forum. He possesses an Honors degree in Physics from BITS Pilani, and an MBA from Yale University’s School of Management.

Swarnapragati

Year founded: 2010

Headquarters: Chennai

Website: www.sphm.co.in

Market
Nearly 50% of the Indian population lives in semi-pucca or kutcha houses. In rural India, the situation worsens with almost 69% in such a state and a housing shortage of 40 million units. Most of this is concentrated in the low-income population, who are unable to access loans.

Company
Swarna Pragati Housing Microfinance is the country’s first housing finance company to launch a dedicated Housing Microfinance product. They provide loans in the range of Rs.50,000 - Rs.7 Lakhs targeted to economically underserved in rural India based on the principle of incremental housing, where low-income families build their houses one step at a time. With the first loan, families are able to add water and sanitation facilities, and with additional loans, they improve flooring, complete roofing and gradually add new rooms. They have also undertaken financial literacy programmes, income-generating activities, and several research studies to not just provide housing, but productive housing.

Impact
Swarna Pragathi provides microfinance housing loans to low-income individuals and Self Help Groups (SHGs) in rural India. Informal sources of income and unclear land titles have caused this segment to be previously underserved. Today, Swarna Pragathi has 18 branches and over 30 partners across four states in India. Over the coming years, they plan to expand their presence to over nine states and build a portfolio of Rs. 1000 cr.

THE TEAM
Ramesh Kumar - Ramesh is the founder of Swarnapragathi and is a reputed banker with more than three decades of experience in India and internationally. As Chief General Manager of SBI, the largest bank in India, he headed all International offices and subsidiaries of the Bank and managed SBI’s expansive Maharashtra Circle. As Chairman of NABARD’s National Committee on Rural Habitat, he was involved in developing an innovative model for microfinance in Maharashtra which made it the fastest growing state in microfinance in 2008.

Varthana

Year founded: 2012

Headquarters: Bangalore

Website: www.varthana.com

Asha Impact has successfully completed its exit from Varthana, a Bengaluru based NBFC providing loans to affordable private schools. Varthana provides loans with an average ticket size of Rs. 25 Lakhs to affordable private schools for building classrooms and school infrastructure. There are more than 300,000 such affordable private schools in India serving more than 100 million underserved children. They are the preferred education option for millions of families as government schools have typically been associated with poor infra and learning outcomes. Leveraging its unique market understanding and ground-up credit assessment process, Varthana has built a loan book of over Rs. 700 Crore lending to more than 3,500 schools impacting over 2 million children.

The secondary sale was part of the Rs. 355 Crore Series-C round led by Chrys Capital and existing investors Elever Equity, Omidyar Network, LGT Impact and Kaizen Private Equity. Asha Impact participated in Varthana’s Rs. 32 Crore Series-A fund raise in 2015, providing the company with the necessary domestic capital. Asha Impact has generated a 6x return on its investment in less than 3 years, making it one of the most successful exits to date in the Indian impact investing sector outside of microfinance. It has clearly demonstrated that the sector has the ability to meet the financial expectations of commercial investors, attract domestic capital, and generate profitable exits in social enterprises.

Let’s Recycle - NEPRA

Year founded: 2011

Headquarters: Ahmedabad

Website: www.nepra.co.in

Market
India generates more the one lac metric tonnes of solid waste every day. The sector has been plagued with poor segregation practices, which result in overfilling of landfills and loss of valuable recyclable waste including paper, plastic, cardboard and glass. With initiatives such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan there is large demand for organised waste management enterprises who can process at scale and provide reliable end-to-end waste management services.

Company
Let’s Recycle is an initiative of Nepra Resource Management Private Limited, a waste management services company based out of Ahmedabad, Gujarat. NEPRA is building a sustainable value-chain for dry waste collection, processing and recycling. The company has leveraged advanced technology for processing of waste and has developed a model that is modular, scalable and highly replicable. It currently has a capacity of processing 100 tonnes of waste per day in Ahmedabad and will be extending its geographical presence to new cities.

Impact
NEPRA's model is aligned with creating green jobs and entrepreneurship in the waste management sector. Till date, more than 23,000 tons of CO2 has been mitigated from the environment and the company has diverted all the waste recovered at its Material Resource Facilities either towards recycling or energy recovery.

THE TEAM
Sandeep Patel - Sandeep is the CEO of NEPRA. He has more than 7 years of work experience in the waste management sector where in he focused on industrial and dry waste. Previously, he has worked for 13 years across various sectors such as travel, ITES/BPO, chemical manufacturing, trading and exports business prior to founding NEPRA. He holds an MBA from Leeds Beckett University.

Dhrumin Patel - Dhrumin is the co-founder and COO of NEPRA. He looks after the overall operations of the company with emphasis on collections and waste picker inclusion. Prior to joining NEPRA, he has worked with companies based in the UK for 3 years. He holds a Masters in Pharmaceutical Science from the University of Greenwich, UK.

Ravi Patel - Ravi is the co-founder and sales head of NEPRA. He has over 6 years of experience in logistic management of chemical transportation and has also worked for 4 years in the chemical trading unit at Sai Chemicals. He holds a Bachelor in commerce degree from MS University, Baroda.

Vastu Housing Finance

Year founded: 2015

Headquarters: Mumbai

Website: www.vastuhfc.com

Market
Today Affordable housing finance companies have grown rapidly to build a loan portfolio of Rs. 745 billion, however, if one is self-employed, and without comprehensive documented income or adequate credit history, getting a home loan can prove to be a huge challenge. This is because of traditional lenders, in the current eco-system, find it difficult to ‘fit' the average person's case into their income assessment methods. Consequently, potential home buyers end up borrowing from informal lenders or sometimes abandon the dream of owning a home.

Company
Vastu Housing Finance is a housing finance company that addresses this gap by using a combination of technology and the traditional distribution model to provide simple, easy and flexible loans. Through its unique ability to acquire and underwrite large volumes of such loans, Vastu serves the under-served community. With a shortage of nearly 20 crore homes in India and a large portion contributed by the low-income population, Vastu aims to provide housing finance to over 10000 clients in the next three years.

Impact
Vastu has deployed loans to consumers who belong to either the Economically Weaker Section or the Lower Income Group. Most of Vastu's customers are new to credit, self-employed individuals with no income proof.

THE TEAM
Sandeep Menon - Sandeep Menon is the Managing Director of Vastu Housing Finance is a senior banker with over 19 years of diverse experience in the financial services sector. Having served in various country-level leadership roles in reputed institutions such as GE Capital, Standard Chartered, and Barclays, he brings rich experience in Strategy, Sales and Marketing, Product design and Risk Management. Previously, Sandeep was the National Sales Head for Car loans, National head for Retail SME lending at Standard Chartered Bank.

Sujay Patil - Sujay Patil is a Co-founder and CFO at Vastu. He is a Banking & Financial services professional with over 15 years of experience with leading organizations including GE Capital, Standard Chartered Bank, Indiabulls and Barclays Bank. He has successfully executed varied assignments in business strategy, product launches, planning, product management, front end sales, collections, CRM, cross sell and portfolio management. Sujay Patil holds an MMS (Marketing) degree from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management studies and BE (EL & TL) from the Mumbai University.

Unitus Seed Fund

Year founded: 2012

Headquarters: Bangalore

Website: www.usf.vc

Market
While there has been a significant inflow of commercial capital into the country, seed stage investments into startups that focus on underserved markets have been ignored by traditional VCs. Even though the impact investment sector, about a decade old, has attracted over USD 2 billion of capital, most of the funds have been provided to either microfinance companies or enterprises in the later stages of their operations. There is a strong need for a seed fund that invests in the early stage startups in the impact space.

Company
Unitus Seed Fund is a USD 23 million seed-stage venture investment fund based in Bangalore and Seattle that invests in startups innovating for the masses in India. They help startups “prepare for growth” via seed funding, strategic & operating support, providing critical connections, and securing growth capital. Some of Unitus Seed Fund’s investments include Milaap (an online-lending and crowdfunding platform for causes), Hippocampus (affordable nursery schools), and Caravan Craft (retail chain of traditional products made by artisans).

Impact
Through its investments, Unitus Seed Fund has impacted over a 100,000 people in underserved segments through employment generation and provision of better products and services.

FOUNDERS
Dave Richards - Dave is co-founder of Unitus Seed Fund. Dave has been an early investor in microfinance and other businesses serving low-income populations. Since 2005, he has been involved with the Unitus Group, helping to lead efforts to select and invest in entrepreneurs in many developing countries. Dave led the Unitus Labs incubator for two years including the successful research and spin out of two venture firms: Unitus Impact and Unitus Seed Fund. He is currently a partner with Social Venture Partners (SVP) Seattle and the co-founder of the SVP Fast Pitch startup angel fund. Dave received his Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia.

Srikrishna Ramamoorthy - Srikrishna joined Unitus Seed Fund as a Partner to setup and lead India operations in 2012. Previously, he was co-founder at Kinara Capital, a pioneering startup in the small business lending sector in India, where he led client sourcing and product development. At Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, a leading impact investor in India, Srikrishna led initiatives in urban livelihoods and managed a portfolio of investments in urban microfinance and low-income housing. He was also a member of the founding team at Ujjivan, the leading urban-focused microfinance organization in India, where he setup and managed microfinance branches.

Saahas Zero Waste

Year founded: 2013

Headquarters: Bangalore

Website: www.saahaszerowaste.com

Market
Over the next decade, India is projected to become the fastest growing region for waste generation. This poses a grave problem because already, the current waste management processes in India, are struggling to cope with the rapid rate of urbanization and the development of megacities across the country. Of the huge amounts of waste being generated, only a fraction is collected, and a dismally low amount is treated properly.

Company
Saahas is a socio-environmental enterprise reclaiming waste as a resource by providing institutions, from small households to large institutions and manufacturers, complete end to end waste solutions. They help each of their clients emerge as zero waste entities by providing a range of services including setting up on-site facilities, providing consulting services, and building decentralized treatment centers. The collected waste is either composted, sorted, sent to the appropriate site or recycled into usable products such as notebooks, gift sets, paper, etc.

Impact
Saahas’ end to end solutions are mitigating the environmental, public health, and social costs of improper waste management in India. They have already reached 1,25,00 citizens and diverted 15,000 tonnes of waste from landfills. This has created 200 livelihoods and avoided 19,000 tonnes of GHG emissions.

THE TEAM
Wilma Rodrigues - A Bachelors degree in Life Sciences & Post graduation in Journalism from Bombay University, Wilma Rodrigues spent many years as a journalist in Mumbai with Times of India and Business World Magazine. She set up Saahas in 2001 which evolved to Saahas Waste Management Pvt. Ltd. She has 13 years of deep experience in the waste sector and has pioneered the concept of a zero waste campus which is now disrupting the concept of centralized waste systems. A key member of the Solid Waste Management Round Table, she was awarded best Social Entrepreneur by the Namma Bengaluru Foundation.

Investments At Asha Impact

What we look for

Management

High-quality entrepreneurs with a clear vision and strategy, who have the ability to execute on the ground.

Business Model

For-profit business models with solid unit economics that are financially sustainable and scalable.

Social Impact

Enterprises that are intentionally focused on underserved populations and able to measure their social impact.

What Makes Us Unique

Domestic Capital

One of the few funding platforms with significant domestic capital from local business leaders.

Flexible Approach

Capital on-call "virtual fund" model with flexibility in strategy.

Value-Add

Ability to provide meanignfull value-add at strategic and operational levels.

Sectors

Housing & Urban Development
(HUD)

Housing & Urban Development
(HUD)
Financial Inclusion
(FI)

Financial Inclusion
(FI)
Technology for Development
(TD)

Technology for Development
(TD)
Education & Employability
(EE)

Education & Employability
(EE)
Agribusiness & Rural Supply Chain
(ARSC)

Agribusiness & Rural Supply Chain
(ARSC)
Healthcare
(HC)

Healthcare
(HC)

Portfolio

Avanti Learning Centres

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Greenway Appliances

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Janaadhar

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Nepra

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Vastu Housing Finance

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Automony

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Swarnapragati

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Grameen Impact

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Saahas Zero Waste

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Unitus Seed Fund

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Adda 247

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Jana Care

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Gramophone

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Exited Investments

Varthana

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