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In this post I would like to introduce you to three innovations focused on the bottom of the pyramid.  These three innovations are very exciting and you can get even get involved with any one of them.  First up, The Acumen Fund.

The Acumen Fund: A VC Firm Focused on the Bottom of the Pyramid

I first heard about the Acumen Fund a while back but it was recently brought to the front of my mind via a post on Marginal Revolution (one of my favorite economics blogs). Here is the explanation of Acumen directly from Marginal Revolution:

The idea is to invest patient capital in scalable, for-profit businesses that deliver services to the poor.  The fund, for example, has invested in a firm producing drip irrigation systems in Pakistan, a Tanzanian firm that produces mosquito nets and an Indian firm producing internet-telephone kiosks in small villages.

This is such a fantastic idea.  I can’t believe I had forgotten about Acumen.  I highly recommend checking out their website for more information. I am certainly going to do more homework on these guys.

The one thing I want to know is what their returns look like.  Acumen is a not-for-profit organization but I wonder if this type of investing could be done for-profit.  The one issue I can foresee right away is the liquidity issue.  For example, how do you sell or take public a Pakistani drip irrigation systems company or a Tanzanian mosquito net company?  Even if the companies were big enough I am not sure the capital markets or M&A activity is robust enough to get companies to exit. That said, it may be someday.

Samasource

I just learned about Samasource yesterday via an fbFund related tweet from Mr. Dave McClure.  Samasource was a participant in the fbFund Rev program this summer (the fbFund is a seed fund run by Facebook, the Founders Fund and Accel Partners).

The basic gist of Samasource is this: you can use their site to outsource computer-based work to women, refugees and youth living in poverty.

Samasource is helping to create jobs for the next billion by offering outsourced services ranging from data services and transcription to testing services and virtual assistance.  We have some tasks at TransFS that I am considering using Samasource for so I will report back on its effectiveness in a future post.

Here is a short presentation on Samasource with a few success stories:

Bankers Without Borders

Bankers Without Borders is a Grameen Foundation volunteer initiative. A number of microfinance related volunteer opportunities are listed on their site. When I first started getting into microfinance this site wasn’t around and it was much harder to find places where my skills were needed.  Bankers Without Borders makes volunteering in microfinance simple. If you are at all interested in microfinance I highly recommend checking out their site.