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Social Entrepreneurs
by gautam on January 20, 2010
Meet Vineet Rai, CEO of Aavishkaar, which can be termed as India's first social venture capital fund. With a corpus of just over Rs 1.65 billion, it is just a tiny drop in the Indian economy but that doesn't fetters Vineet. The social venture capital fund drawing cheers also challenges the skepticism over the prevalent idea that profit and social justice can never be combined.
Rai started working when Indian economy got into the liberalization mode and while being posted at a remote village in Orissa got first hand experience of complex structure of poverty in India. Very soon he realized that the major obstacle to livelihood generating rural enterprises in India is not the dearth of abilities but investors who are averse to taking risks. He wanted to do something to change it so he coupled with the support of business veterans and an investment of Rs 5 million started Aavishkaar.
Over the last decade Aavishkaar has invested in a number of ventures such as Vortex Engineering which is engaged in designing and manufacturing of low cost ATMs for use in remote regions, Servals Automation which creates energy solutions for the poor, Saraplast, providing mobile toilets for solving sanitation issues, Vaatsalya which is engaged in creation of rural hospitals for low income groups and Rangsutra Crafts, a company deploying a thousand textile artisans from the remote regions of India.
Conventional venture capitalists would have shied away from such ideas because the risks didn't match high potential returns and even after success of so many Aavishkaar ventures the mindset of conventional venture capitalists is still the same. Vineet Rai is also a frequent speaker at public events and his opening line at most of the events tends to be "I can't wait for the 'social' to be dropped" may sound premature but with these words he intends to convey the message that attaching the word "social" would not expand economic opportunity and social justice rather it would only happen when positive social impact gets embedded in the overwhelming majority of businesses. True words I must say!!
Rai started working when Indian economy got into the liberalization mode and while being posted at a remote village in Orissa got first hand experience of complex structure of poverty in India. Very soon he realized that the major obstacle to livelihood generating rural enterprises in India is not the dearth of abilities but investors who are averse to taking risks. He wanted to do something to change it so he coupled with the support of business veterans and an investment of Rs 5 million started Aavishkaar.
Over the last decade Aavishkaar has invested in a number of ventures such as Vortex Engineering which is engaged in designing and manufacturing of low cost ATMs for use in remote regions, Servals Automation which creates energy solutions for the poor, Saraplast, providing mobile toilets for solving sanitation issues, Vaatsalya which is engaged in creation of rural hospitals for low income groups and Rangsutra Crafts, a company deploying a thousand textile artisans from the remote regions of India.
Conventional venture capitalists would have shied away from such ideas because the risks didn't match high potential returns and even after success of so many Aavishkaar ventures the mindset of conventional venture capitalists is still the same. Vineet Rai is also a frequent speaker at public events and his opening line at most of the events tends to be "I can't wait for the 'social' to be dropped" may sound premature but with these words he intends to convey the message that attaching the word "social" would not expand economic opportunity and social justice rather it would only happen when positive social impact gets embedded in the overwhelming majority of businesses. True words I must say!!
Trackback: http://publish.creative-weblogging.com/publish/mt-tb.pl/170956
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Vote for Aavishkaar: India’s First Social Venture Capital Fund:
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Rating: 6.75 out of 4 vote(s) cast.
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Response from:
New Laptop Batteries
(01/29/10 7:44pm)
thanks for your article, which help me know something about india.
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