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MicroGraam and NextDrop part of 15 finalists in Artha Venture Challenge

MicroGraam and NextDrop part of 15 finalists in Artha Venture Challenge

Wednesday September 04, 2013 , 3 min Read

Picture credit: www.arthaventurechallenge.com
Picture credit: www.arthaventurechallenge.com

The final cohort of 15 enterprises of the Artha Venture Challenge (AVC) have been announced. They include Aakar Innovations, Arogya Finance, Avani Bio Energy, Banka BioLoo, Boond Engineering & Development, Edubridge Learning, Jackonblock Facility Services, KNIDS GREEN, NextDrop, MicroGraam Marketplace, Sakhi Unique Rural Enterprise, Sanchayan Suraksha Solutions, Sevamob, Tamul Plates Marketing and Villgro Innovation Marketing.

AVC is a national competition designed to identify, select and provide the best socially focused ventures access to mentoring, connections and funding. In all 116 early-stage social enterprises applied for the challenge.

These finalists will receive extensive capacity building support, the opportunity to access Rs 25 lakh of equity funding, if matched by the same in co-investment within the next eight months. That co-investment may take the form of grant, equity or debt, though the AVC matched piece must necessarily be in equity form.

To ensure that the final cohort are able to secure the external round of funding necessary to access the matched round of INR 25 lakh, innovation accelerators Ennovent and Villgro will be working closely with each of the finalists to provide them customised support.

These organisations will enable the final cohort to build a compelling growth story by providing access to expert mentors, facilitating exposure to a closed network of impact investors, offering investment readiness support and profiling them as one of the most high-potential social entrepreneurs in India.

Currently, many high-potential social ventures fail because of an inability to access the funding and resources required to grow operations and scale impact. The AVC, which invited entrepreneurs that have completed proof of concept and are seeking growth investment, aims to address this missing middle in social finance by providing access to high-risk patient capital and customised business support.

Audrey Selian, Director, Artha Platform and the newly formed Artha Networks Inc., comments, “Our goal is to shift the center of gravity in this space, to empower the entrepreneurs through our process, and then to encourage our peer impact investors to take action. This is indeed an opportunity for us all to replace talk with action.”

Pradeep Kashyap, Founder of MART who was on the jury panel for the AVC adds, “It was an interesting learning experience. Some of the plans from the ventures were of the highest order.”

The Artha Venture Challenge is funded by the Artha Platform, whose core funder/founder is the team at Rianta Capital Zurich. Inspired by the UK Big Venture Challenge where 10 early-stage co-investment deals were closed within 10 months, the Artha Venture Challenge aims to similarly stimulate the early growth stage social investment market, except with an exclusive Indian focus. By strengthening seed investment in social ventures in India and helping investors de-risk through co-investment, the AVC will strategically deploy capital and resources where they matters the most.

Learn more about the final cohort of the AVC by visiting www.arthaventurechallenge.com