NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Aavishkaar: Pioneering Microventure Capital in India - Comments

Thanks for this informative

Indian — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:37:13 -0500

Thanks for this informative article.

Project Financing and microfinance

Parikshit Deshmukh — Mon, 09 Oct 2006 11:52:14 -0500

Truely altruistic in nature. The sections I like most is as follows: 1) Latest News 2) Blog Topics This event made me regular viewer of this weblink. Regards, Parikshit Deshmukh.

Distinction between "micro" and "venture" finance

Rob Katz — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:11:47 -0500

The MicroCapital blog is undeniably interesting. Thanks for the link - I'm adding to my RSS feeds and delicious tags. Commercially-viable microfinance funds (you discuss ABN-Amro, Tufts-Omidyar fund, Deutsche Bank etc) are one thing. Venture-finance - to help scale existing small and medium sized enterprises - is another. Venture finance means intermediate loan sizes - just what Aavishkaar is doing. Is this a grey area, or something that can be reconciled?

Indian Microfinance

MicroCapital — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 11:45:44 -0500

Thank you for covering this important microfinance development. For focused information on microfinance investment, please visit our MicroCapital blog. For other news on microfinance investment in India, please see the following posts: http://www.microcapital.org/cblog/index.php?/categories/3-Asia http://microcapital.org/cblog/index.php?/categories/3-Asia/P3.html

Economist on Indian VC

Rob Katz — Tue, 15 Nov 2005 08:30:04 -0500

After reading Atul's post, I did a quick bit of research on private equity in India, and came up with this from the Economist: Private Equity in India - A New Frontier, from back in September. The authors note that the most promising category of private equity investment is "growth capital for expanding firms", which includes small- and medium-sized enterprise scale-up. Between Aavishkaar and the traditional private equity sector, there's enough money to make these enterprises work. But how do you identify the right ones, mentor them, get them good market research, and bring them to the VCs? A good place to start is New Ventures, which is starting Indian operations in December.

(Note: WorldChanging's Jamais Cascio has written up a nice post about Aavishkaar. Check it out.)

Aavishkaar: Pioneering Microventure Capital in India

_atul — Mon, 14 Nov 2005 00:33:23 -0500

Finance is central to social and economic growth. While big businesses have easy access to diverse sources of funds, small and poor entrepreneurs find it extremely difficult to raise money. Capital constraints prevent many bright innovations from making it to the market. In India, availability of all forms of financing for the poor – rural or urban – is improving slowly. However, the availability of risk-capital or equity is still very limited. In this milieu, Aavishkaar (a Hindi word that means innovation) India Micro Venture Capital Fund (www.aavishkaar.org) came into existence to finance socially relevant, commercially viable and environmentally friendly enterprises that do not have access to project financing – loan or equity – from traditional financial institutions. Aavishkaar India fills an important niche as it is positioned between microfinance and traditional venture capital funds with its promise of equity support to small businesses. The projects that Aavishkaar support are in the range between Rs.500,000 (USD 10,000) and Rs.5,000,000 (USD 100,000).