SOCIAL

SUCCESS NOTE

Playbook

A blended finance tool

for social impact

Commissioned by

Supported by

3

KNOWLEDGE PARTNER

Asha Impact, founded in 2014 by Vikram Gandhi and Pramod Bhasin, is a pioneer in the Indian development finance landscape that operates an impact investment platform and think tank for some of India’s most respected business leaders, family offices and philanthropists, to leverage their capital, networks and expertise to address major socio-economic challenges. The Asha Circle is a capital-on-call virtual fund that provides venture investment to for-profit social enterprises across sectors including financial inclusion, agribusiness, affordable education and healthcare. The not-profit Asha Trust provides thought leadership and convening power to build the market for impact investment and blended finance in India and unlock private capital for development. The Trust also works with government and civil society on partnerships to improve service delivery that address market and policy bottlenecks in specific areas like housing, waste management, education, skilling and employment.

SPONSOR

One of SAP India’s CSR initiatives is to foster the social entrepreneurship ecosystem to promote economic development and address socio-development issues in India. The Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs’ (ANDE’s) strength and mission to convene stakeholders in the small and growing business ecosystem aligns with SAP India’s mission to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the no poverty (SDG 1) and decent work and economic growth (SDG 8) goals. This report is one of the outputs from the Small and Growing Business (SGB) Finance Learning Lab that SAP India has provided support to the ANDE India chapter for and furthers the goal of bringing together impact investors, entrepreneurs, academia, and public and private sector players to stimulate action-oriented discourse and share learnings that we hope will improve understanding and collaboration in making more funding available for small and growing impact businesses in India.

PLATFORM PARTNER

The SDG Finance Facility is a multi-stakeholder platform that supports the incubation and design of SDG-aligned innovative financial instruments that will crowd-in additional capital to address the key development challenges in India. The aim is to strengthen the market infrastructure for innovative finance through actionable research and strategic partnerships.

The SDG Finance Facility is anchored by the United Nations Development Programme, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation and is partnered by NITI Aayog and the European Union.