As we engage with our Cohort 1 participants and applications continue to come in for Cohort 2, we get a lot of questions on raising international capital. If you've been out attempting to raise capital or have already done so, you know there are a myriad of challenges you will face as an impact fund manager looking to secure capital from […]
Category: Thinking
Reflections on 10+ Years of Building Impact Funds in Emerging Markets
"There are lots of great entrepreneurs in high-growth emerging markets in Africa, Latin America and Asia and very little early-stage risk capital available, so their businesses aren’t realizing their potential in areas such as agriculture, healthcare, education and technology. The cause isn’t the lack of capital. What’s needed are on-the-ground, […]
New Research Shows Expansion of Sidecar Funds for Accelerators
Our sister company, Unitus Ventures (formerly Unitus Seed Fund), recently released research results from a "Global Best Practices" survey of incubators and accelerators. They found that the concept of creating sidecar investment funds to invest in the best companies in each cohort is catching on faster than expected, with 90% of the accelerators reporting that they have […]
Impact Fundraising 101
Tips for How to Raise your First Impact Fund If you’re planning to raise money for your new impact venture fund, get ready for a long, challenging and uncertain road. From our successful efforts with Unitus Ventures (formerly Unitus Seed Fund), and our colleagues’ efforts with Elevar Equity and Unitus Impact, I can tell you it’s a very competitive world out there. In fact, […]
What is Impact?
What does "Impact" mean in the context of the Capria Accelerator? The term “impact investing” has been around for about 10 years. Since the field is still young, impact is a broadly used term, with different meanings to different people. There are many types of impact investors including some with specific definitions such as: Improving […]
Introduction to Revenue-Based Financing
Revenue-based financing is a strong alternative structure for high-risk investments in emerging markets With few exceptions, venture capital has used the same preferred equity structure for decades. While this “one-size-fits-all” approach to financing has its advantages, it is often an inappropriate structure. This is particularly true in non-OECD […]
Top Challenges for New Fund Managers
First time fund managers have some unique and significant challenges When I met with hundreds of LPs to pitch them on our first fund, Unitus Ventures (formerly Unitus Seed Fund), one of the largest obstacles was the fact that we were “first-time fund managers.” We had years of relevant experience with: Personal angel investing Participating in fund investment […]
Why Capria?
Why an Accelerator for Venture Capital? After launching our first venture fund in India in 2012, my partner Dave and I wanted to find a model to extend our early-stage impact investing globally. We knew from decades of combined experience about the challenges of investing at the seed stage. We also knew of the imperative to have empowered and […]
