Executive Council
Royston Braganza
Chief Executive Officer, Grameen Impact Investments India
Impact Measurement and Management (IMM) is the ‘cornerstone’ of impact investing. The measurement of impact performance is crucial as impact investors scale-up financing to achieve the United Nations’ SDGs. With impact investing all set to become mainstream in the post-COVID world, ‘impact performance’ is bound to evolve as a new dimension to evaluate the performance of all types of investments. IIC and KPMG India undertook an industry-wide survey of Impact Investors active in India in an attempt to capture the baseline state of IMM practices in the country. The report provides insights on current Indian IMM industry practices.
Rising demand for socially responsible and purpose-driven finance has resulted in new ways of putting capital to work the world over. In the past decade, what is now known as “impact investing” has challenged the long-held view that social returns should be funded by philanthropy and financial returns should be funded by mainstream investors.
The global market for impact investments is projected to grow to $300 billion or more by 2020, according to the Global Steering Group on Impact Investment. Although this is still a fraction of the total private-equity assets under management (about $2.5 trillion in 2016), mainstream investors have entered the arena and are bringing scale to what was earlier considered a niche. And the dialogue is shifting rapidly from impact investing to “investing for impact.”
India is fast becoming a test bed for many of these activities. Between 2010 and 2016, India attracted over 50 active impact investors, who poured in more than $5.2 billion. About $1.1 billion was invested in 2016 alone. We hope this report will give readers a sense of how impact investing is developing in India, and debunk some myths that have long surrounded these investments.
With an active social enterprise space and an engaged investment market, impact investing takes advantage of private sector efficiency and capital to achieve public sector goals. With this report, we aim to provide an analysis of the impact investment sector in India and its potential to achieve social good. The study brings together wide-ranging analyses undertaken between February 2018 and April 2019. Structured around four key tenets of impact investment market activity — market trends in India, sector-level analysis, innovative financing and measurements— it takes the reader through the major trends that have shaped the Indian impact investment environment and offers specific recommendations. A special focus is placed on the key social themes of health, education and agriculture.
Debt financing has grown in India, but at only 25 percent of total investing, Indian impact enterprises struggle to find the working capital they need to grow and fulfil their potential. To better understand the challenges impact enterprises face in borrowing money, the India Impact Investors Council and The Bridgespan Group joined in this research project to chart the debt landscape, identify barriers to debt financing, and propose ways to make debt more accessible.
A comprehensive report on the Indian impact sector over the last decade looking at the nature of capital flows and business models, and assessing the cumulative impact of the industry. The aggregation study attempts to quantify and showcase the cumulative power of the impact created and also celebrate the great stories of innovation that the industry has spawned.
India Impact Investors Council (IIC) released its annual report “2020 in Retrospect: India Impact Investment Trends” on 15th February 2021. The report reveals that Impact enterprises received ~$2.6BN in investment across 243 equity deals and saw 13 successful exits in the calendar year (CY) 2020. One clear conclusion from the report is that despite the global health pandemic and its accompanying effects on the business and economic environment, impact investors have pledged their support to solving critical social and environmental challenges through investments in scalable, tech-based, innovative impact enterprises.
The analysis is based on a bottom-up database of venture deals in social enterprises across all significant impact sectors.
COVID-19 is an unprecedented health and development crisis. The efforts required to contain its spread by curtailing movement to limit exposure have severely impacted lives and livelihoods and stalled economic activity. While a significant amount of capital has been deployed by the Government, there is scope to do more. Commercial mainstream capital can fill this funding gap, provided opportunities are appropriately structured and the risk return profile is aligned. Blended finance involves using philanthropic or concessionary funds to de-risk investments in order to attract commercial capital. This catalytic approach leads to a leveraging effect where every rupee of grant money deployed attracts many multiples of commercial capital.
Early-stage Climate-tech Startups in India: Investment landscape 2021 is an endeavour by the Impact Investors Council, Climate Collective and Areté Advisors to spotlight the activity in the Indian climate tech ecosystem over the last five years. The report serves three key objectives –
IIC’s continuing effort to spotlight emerging climate tech innovations presenting investment potential, is furthered by the 2022 chronicle of the equity investment trends in climate-tech enterprises.
Gain deep insights into evolving investment trends in innovative solutions that leverage technology to propel climate action. The report aims to demystify and familirise the landscape of ingenious solutions and business models that hold the potential to amplify the scale and impact of ‘green’ sectors. Acquint yourself with the evolving ecosystem of climate focussed innovations and startup enterprises which can poise India at the forefront of climate action.
This Report builds on IIC’s endeavour to mainstream climate-tech investing as an asset class and equip the impact investing ecosystem with meaningful insights that can drive investment strategies.
Learn more about how the innovative solutions across Sustainable Mobility, Waste Management & Circular Economy, Climate Smart Agriculture & Food, Energy, and Environment & Natural Resources are at the forefront of tackling the climate crisis in India.
Embrace the data-driven narrative of India’s climate tech evolution and what investment trends say for each of these sectors!
This report is supported by funding from the Neev Fund.
The Impact Investors Council (IIC) and Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) collaborate to present a comprehensive exploration of the emerging sectors in India, offering promising investable opportunities for various forms of private capital.
This diligently curated report identifies and showcases sectors positioned for growth, supported by data-driven insights and the wisdom of industry experts. It offers a unique chronicle of sector-specific investment strategies, providing a concise and authoritative framework for structuring investment approaches in sectors at the forefront of India’s sustainable growth journey.
Dive into the research findings and recommendations, tailored for specific stakeholders, across pivotal and high-impact domains such as:
The report serves as a valuable guide for strategic green investments, offering a comprehensive reference for investors and stakeholders seeking to make an impactful contribution to India’s green growth.
Marking a decade of transformative work in the impact investing space, the Impact Investors Council (IIC) proudly presents a commemorative coffee table book that celebrates The India Story over the past decade and more.
This one-of-a-kind publication chronicles the journey of impact investing in India, spotlighting the evolution of equity, debt and blended finance in catalysing impact across sectors.
Read more to learn about the themes that demonstrate potential for investments and impact, and the ‘Impact Champions’ who have been instrumental in shaping India’s impact investing narrative.
2023 in Retrospect: India Impact Investment Trends
The India Impact Investors Council (IIC) presents the fourth edition of our annual research report series, “2023 in Retrospect: India Impact Investment Trends.” The report delves into the intricate landscape of impact investment in India, revealing that in 2023, a total of $2.9 billion in equity investments were spread across 275 impactful enterprises spanning critical sectors such as agriculture, climate tech, education, financial inclusion, healthcare, and technology for development. In addition to the sector deep dives, the report highlights other themes such as Gender-Lens Investing and the landscape of family offices in the impact space. Moreover, you can also find insights from industry practitioners, as they share their on-ground perspectives within the report.
Climate Tech Investment Trends in India: A 2022 Retrospective is a comprehensive annual report by the Impact Investors Council, aided by funding from the Neev Fund. It’s a deep dive into the investment landscape for climate tech startups in India during the year 2022.
This report serves three key objectives:
The report is a must-read for anyone interested in understanding and contributing to the growth of climate tech startups in India.
Family offices are coming into their own in India. A steady increase in wealth, juxtaposed against growing threats from climate change, poverty and inequality, has encouraged this growing cohort of wealthy families to create legacies that go beyond just financial wealth and contribute to a better and sustainable future.
In a first of its kind study, Waterfield Advisors and the Impact Investors Council (IIC) have come together to present a comprehensive picture on the state and position of impact investing practices amongst family offices (FOs) and high net worth individuals (HNIs) in India.
Impact Investors Council (IIC) is pleased to share our contribution to the ACCESS Development Services Inclusive Finance India Report 2021 through a chapter exploring blended finance structures in the financial inclusion space. The write-up delineates how innovative asset-based, liability-based and pay-for-success structures (such as impact bonds) can strengthen NBFC balance sheets and solve pressing challenges in critical sectors where a lack of credit is hampering India’s economic growth.
The analysis is based on a bottom-up database of venture deals in social enterprises across all significant impact sectors.
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India’s equity impact investing market is poised for sustained growth. As the nation looks to spend roughly ~$170 Bn annually to finance Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, the limited public sector resources mean that impact capital providers will have to play a greater role in plugging this funding gap.
Traditionally, funding into early-stage impact enterprises in India has been led by impact investors, while later-stage funding comes from commercial investors. This model has served us well so far. Still, a “missing-link” exists in the market: the absence of a growth stage India-focused impact funds can finance the transition of impact enterprises beyond early venture funding.
The all-in-one handbook attempts to provide a bird’s-eye perspective of the investment opportunity across multiple dimensions of the impact investing market in India (such as Equity, Debt, Gender-lens, Climate-tech, Blended Finance etc.) through a combination of grounds-up IIC database analysis and insights from key industry practitioners.