Crossing the Digital Divide: Opportunities to Scale Impact in the Artisan Sector
R.I.S.E. Artisan Fund invited Hedvig Alexander, co-founder of Powered by People, and Priya Krishnamoorthy, founder and CEO of 200 Million Artisans, to share their perspectives and recent research on opportunities in the artisan sector. Their conversation focused on the best ways to use digital technologies to scale the sector and create greater economic opportunities for artisan producers.
Why We Invested: Iluméxico
R.I.S.E. Artisan Fund has joined Beneficial Returns, an impact investment fund manager, in an impact investment to improve the lives of rural Mexicans and protect the environment. R.I.S.E. Artisan Fund is participating in a loan that Beneficial Returns has extended to Iluméxico, a social enterprise delivering solar energy solutions to remote Mexican communities.
Why We Invested: BIDUK
Sprout Enterprise®, through its R.I.S.E. Artisan Fund, has invested in BIDUK, a prototype debt fund supplying capital to small and growing businesses (SGBs) in Indonesia. BIDUK (Berinvestasti Dalam Usaha untuk Kemajuan, or Investing in Business for Progress) delivers lending products that are custom-tailored to meet the specific capital requirements of SGBs, using cash-flow based lending.