Discussion about entry: Risk capital for small businesses at the Base of the Pyramid

On October 27, 2010, the judges reviewed entries for the Changemakers G-20 SME Finance Challenge competition and would like to pass on the following feedback for your entry (below). Thank you for applying and for your hard work in the field. We are excited to archive your entry to serve as a leading solution for the worldwide community of innovators. We wish you continued luck with your innovative, sustainable, and socially impactful initiatives.

All the best,

The Changemakers Team

There are a lot of very positive aspects to this project. The focus on rural areas, the mentoring aspect, and the extension of service as well as financing are all great examples of well-rounded SME products. The proven scalability is considerable.

While this entry could do better to distinguish itself from other private equity funds in the sector, its viability is an important piece of the transformational effort.It would be interesting to see more of the financial underpinnings just to ‘kick the tires’ because the growth target is fairly ambitious.