If you are interested in social enterprises, impact investing, start-ups, Asia, empowerment, and stories of unreasonable people committed to make the world a better place, then you may decide to read on.


I will explore the intersection of many different worlds that typically don’t intersect. At this intersection where traditional finance meets non-profit, start-up meets government, Silicon Valley meets Dhaka, there is a new type of ecosystem being built. I have found beauty in such contrasts, where in one conference room, the lady to my left may be a Goldman Sachs executive, to my right, an Indian market weaver, across the table, a member of the Singapore ministry.


This all occurs in a city called Singapore, which I have found to be quite a surprising intersection of many different worlds itself. Often referred to as the “benevolent dictatorship”, one might wonder whether Singapore might just be the ideal place to build a “benevolent capital markets”, a capital markets organized for the purpose of doing good.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Launching Asia’s first Social Stock Exchange

This summer, I am privileged and thrilled to work with Impact Investment Exchange Asia (IIX), a start-up social enterprise based in Singapore. Only two years old, IIX has recently launched Asia’ first private placement platform for social enterprises this past March (known as Impact Partners), where impact investors are introduced to carefully screened social enterprise investment opportunities. And early next year, IIX will be launching Asia’s first Social Stock Exchange (known as Impact Exchange). IIX’s goal is to “create a liquid and transparent trading platform and an efficient capital raising platform for social enterprises in Asia" where investors will evaluate businesses in a new way, placing as much importance on the social and environmental impact of the enterprise as on its financial returns.

These two platforms, Impact Partners and Impact Exchange, will provide access to capital to social enterprises at varying stages of development, ranging from early stage companies accessing venture funding to mature companies seeking full-fledged public listings. The common thread, and the point that differentiates these platforms from traditional capital markets, is their emphasis on the social and/or environmental impact. To this end, these platforms are exclusive to “social enterprises” as investment opportunities.

As someone who has followed this space (meaning social enterprises and impact investing) quite intensely over the past few years, the development of a capital markets for social good strikes me as quite a meaningful achievement in the impact investing industry. This might just be the tipping point that will allow for social enterprises to truly take off and for the proven models to be scaled as part of a country’s sustainable development policies. This will certainly contribute to making Singapore a social enterprise hub in Asia.
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