“IMPACT investing was not created to be mainstreamed. Mainstream has to become impact investing.”
Vineet Chandra Rai, one of the pioneers of impact investing is referring to the global mindset shift required to kick this $1.57 trillion industry into a much high gear.
The Founder of Aavishkaar Group, an organisation that aims to lift the low–middle income group, has been on the impact investing trail since he started as a 29—year-old forester in India, tasked with bringing money to rural India.
“I didn’t call myself an impact investor. That term didn’t exist,” he recounts his early days, at the recently concluded AVPN South Asia Summit 2024, in Chennai.
Vineet feels strongly that $400 trillion of mainstream capital should be shifted towards impact investing, for it to live up to its name.
Helping Up Those At The BOP
Aavishkaar addresses the needs of the ‘emerging 3 billion’ who are moving from subsistence-level existence to become active participants in the global economy. By lending a hand, the aim is to raise them via a smoother transition of entrepreneurial activity and jobs into a new strata of opportunities.
Vineet’s early years as a forester planted the seeds of what was to eventually become Aavishkaar, which, based on its 2024 impact report, has $1.45 billion assets under management and has — among a number of accomplishments — provided financial services to 81 million people, and helped raise farmers’ income by 20-30% via investments in the agricultural sector. It employs around 10,000 people, of which more than 20% are women in senior management positions.
ALSO READ: Cleaning Up The Landfills
Technology As A Driver
Vineet is banking on the rise of artificial intelligence and technology to facilitate the continued rise of those at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)
“Having supported more than 144 million underserved customers through our investments and engagements, we have repeatedly stated that the BOP is no longer a one-dimensional concept, and technology can flatten these pyramids and assist us in delivering a world free from hunger, poverty and inequity.”
Idealistic, perhaps, but that’s been the main driver from the outset.
Impact Investing As A Call To Action
In 2008, Vineet was with an international group of like-minded people working towards mobilising capital for the benefit of the underserved in community.
Antony Bugg-Levine, who had just taken over as Managing Director of The Rockefeller Foundation facilitated a group of disparate change makers with similar ideals to convene at the Bellagio Center.
Vineet was part of the convening group that resulted in the coining of ‘impact investing’, and was handed US$1 million to market the name.
In the video interview above, Vineet talks about the past but also looks to the future of impact investing and what’s needed to help raise the lives of those struggling to get out of the quicksand pull of poverty.
