Beyond Capital generates a 27 percent IRR on the diverse portfolio of early stage impact strategies it manages. This kind of performance allows the firm to directly impact the lives of people living under the poverty line and fully integrate this objective into its mission as a non-profit organization. “What Beyond Capital is able to do around funding entrepreneurial businesses is incredible,” says Amin. “It was a no-brainer for me to join the board, and we have a lot more work to do.”
In addition to the experience and talents of board members like Dulari Amin, Eva Yazhari enjoys the support she gets from impact investing organizations like the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and TONIIC, the global action network for impact investors. “Simply put, without follow-on funders our investments can’t succeed,” she says. “That means they can’t grow financially or from a social impact perspective.” Another value-add from networking with providers of resources to Beyond Capital’s portfolio companies is the potential they have as sources of deal-flow. Two members of the firm’s leadership team have recently spent time in east Africa meeting with other impact investors to brainstorm opportunities.
Technologies To Expand Impact
Amin is clear that her role as a board member of Beyond Capital is to bring other social entrepreneurs and their technologies, which are exponentially more advanced than those she used in scaling her first company, to the firm’s work. “Africa and India, for example, have become mobile-first markets, using next generation mobile devices from the start.” She continues, “They will thrive on lower band-width and computing costs from day one.” She advises Beyond Capital clients on which technologies to use to grow their businesses faster.
Yazhari cherishes board members like Amin, who join for the win/win opportunity. She looks for people who understand what it means to be the entrepreneur trying to grow a small business and working alongside investors and restructuring experts. “We want each board member to be a value-add for Beyond Capital, our client companies and for themselves as board members,” she smiles, “and we want them to be evangelists, leveraging other networks for Beyond Capital and impact investing as a whole.”
Keeping Beyond Capital’s team focused on the business opportunities within the global framework of rapid population growth, millennial generation employment uncertainty and environmental and climate risk is what Eva Yazhari thrives on as a social entrepreneur. A good example is the Beyond Capital portfolio company Sanergy, that franchises toilets in the slums of Nairobi, a rapidly growing coastal African city with critical infrastructure needs.
The company creates jobs for people who want to grow a business and provide clean sanitation in a dignified way. Toilets are serviced daily and have a hand-washing station nearby, providing a better alternative for waste treatment in the slums. People pay to use the toilets, but the business owners make money by turning the waste into fertilizer and animal feed. This is one example of a market opportunity created by rapid urban population growth in African and Asian mega-cities. And it turns out that these waste recycling systems use more advanced technology than those in the United States, by comparison. “They have leapfrogged our waste treatment technology,” offers Yazhari, “in the same way that mobile money payments are leapfrogging the western banking system infrastructure in large, developing economy population centers.”
Forward-looking financial advisors and investors should take every opportunity to learn more about the rapidly growing market for impact investing. It’s clear today that women and millennial social entrepreneurs see impact strategies as part of a collaborative and disruptive approach to the public and private markets investment process.
Paul Ellis founded Paul Ellis Consulting to work with financial advisors who want to integrate sustainable and impact investment strategies for their clients.