Investor Profile: Ennovent — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Intro

If you are building a for-profit business for India's low-income markets, Ennovent funding is one of the few impact-investing routes designed precisely for that segment. Ennovent is an innovation accelerator and impact investor founded in 2008, with an office in New Delhi and its headquarters in Austria. It has worked with more than 25,000 network members to accelerate over 115 innovations in 10 countries, blending accelerator services with early-stage capital through the Ennovent Impact Investment Holding and the Ennovent Circle, an investor network co-investing into social enterprises across India.

Thesis and sweet spot

Ennovent's thesis is that the world's roughly 4 billion low-income people are a huge, neglected market, and sustainable for-profit enterprises can serve them while generating fair returns — the triple-bottom-line of People, Planet, Profit. Its focus is Indian low-income markets, mainly rural households earning below $2,000 a year. The sweet spot is early-stage enterprises with a short-to-medium term operating history; it does not fund pre-development ideas. Enterprises should provide affordable goods and services in food, energy, health, water or education, or raise incomes on the supply side. Circle members are broadly sector-agnostic, though not inclined to invest in microfinance or affordable housing.

Cheque size and fund

Ennovent's Sustainable Enterprise Fund invests under $1 million per deal across its five core sectors. The Ennovent Circle, launched in October 2012, finances enterprises raising $50,000 to $300,000 in equity, debt or "quasi equity" for five to seven years; typical investments fall between $25,000 and $1 million, with a sweet spot of $300,000. By April 2014 it had facilitated 5 investments totalling $1.2 million. Envisaged exits are mainly secondary exits or acquisitions. The fund's overall corpus target has not been publicly disclosed.

Notable portfolio

The Sustainable Enterprise Fund's 2011 debut investment was Barefoot Power, which made off-grid lighting and solar phone-charging products for unelectrified populations, alongside Insitor, Oikocredit and The Grace Foundation. Ennovent's Impact Investment Holding and Ankur Capital, with Circle members Beyond Capital Fund and Sadeesh Raghavan, backed Assam-based ERC Eye Care Pvt. Ltd's hub-and-spoke eye-care model. The Circle also facilitated a seed investment into Janta Meals by member Prabhat Agarwal.

Partners and team

The Impact Circle partnered with Toniic in 2012, with early fund members including Omnivore Capital and Lok Capital. Institutional members include Artha, Insitor Fund and Beyond Capital Fund, alongside individuals such as ex-Accenture managing director Sadeesh Raghavan. The team includes founder and managing director Peter Scheuch, Tripat Preet Singh and Digbijoy Shukla, who led the Sustainable Enterprise Fund and the Impact Circle respectively.

Programs, credits and perks

Ennovent launched an online Global Network where founders could showcase solutions to investors and experts, and ran Challenges awarding the best sustainability solutions with an investment, grant or non-monetary reward, e.g. the WWF Switzerland Tropical Forest Challenge. No public startup credits or perks programme has been disclosed by Ennovent.

How to apply for funding

Founders historically reached Ennovent through ennovent.com — registering on the Global Network and applying to its Challenges. Note that ennovent.com was unreachable during this research, so verify it loads before applying. Come with an operating enterprise (not just an idea) in energy, food, water, health, education or livelihoods, serving low-income markets in India, and raising between $50,000 and $300,000.