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Portfolio for Impact and Innovation Portfolio for Impact and InnovationDFC’s PI2 initiative aims to bridge the financing gap for early-stage social enterprises with innovative solutions to challenges facing the developing world.
 Small, early-stage businesses are forging some of the most creative and effective solutions to challenges facing the developing world today, but they often face hurdles accessing the financing needed to scale their operations.

DFC’s Portfolio for Impact and Innovation (PI2) initiative is investing up to $10 million in promising early-stage businesses which otherwise struggle to access financing due to their relative size, short track record, and novel approaches.

The initiative leverages DFC’s enhanced tools, resources, and flexibility to deliver life changing goods and services to those most in need.
 Investment Stories
      
      Revitalizing Kenya’s organic pesticide industry and improving livelihoods for smallholder farmers
    Expanding plastic recycling in India
    Increasing access to hygiene products for women in India
    Tackling water scarcity in Sub-Saharan Africa through local entrepreneurship
    Advancing accessible healthcare in India
    Supporting refugees and host populations in Jordan and Lebanon
    Strengthening treatment of chronic disease in Sub-Saharan Africa
    Reducing carbon emissions in East Africa
    Increasing milk production and empowering small farmers in eastern India
    Helping low-income students in India continue their education during COVID-19
    Helping a women-owned business expand access to women’s health and sanitation products
    Expanding women’s access to affordable mortgages in India
    Preventing blindness in Cameroon
    Supporting a female entrepreneur in Mongolia
    Increasing food supply in India by building a better value chain Woman standing in pyrethrum field
A DFC loan is helping Kentegra, a Kenyan and U.S. biotechnology company, build a new pyrethrum processing facility in Nakuru County, Kenya, to meet growing demand.
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    Hands sorting plastic bottle caps
DFC financing will enable Banyan Nation, an award-winning, vertically integrated plastics recycling company based in India, to expand and upgrade its facilities to more than triple production of circular plastic resins that can be used by a variety of industries, from car manufacturers to consumer goods, to replace the use of virgin plastics.
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    Two Indian schoolgirls looking at their schoolwork
Former banker and leadership coach turned-entrepreneur Sahil Dharia founded India-based Soothe Healthcare in 2012 after considering the negative effects of girls missing school due to menstruation and the benefits of expanding access to hygiene products. DFC financing will help Soothe support the expanded manufacturing of affordable menstrual products and grow its distribution network to better reach under-served women in non-urban areas.
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    Two Jibu employees smiling in front of a van
DFC financing supports the expansion of Jibu, an award-winning business that helps local entrepreneurs establish franchises selling packaged drinking water. Jibu provides access to drinking water to underserved African communities in Rwanda and Uganda, as well as other markets across the continent. Jibu currently operates in seven African countries with over 195 franchises.
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    Indian man on a video call with a doctor
DFC-guaranteed loans to Portea Medical, an India-based home healthcare company founded in 2013, will help provide targeted healthcare services at a fraction of the cost of traditional care. While hospital ICU care can cost approximately $400 per day, Portea’s comparable home-based services are available at only $133 per day.
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    Woman smiling in store
A DFC loan to the Near East Foundation (NEF) UK is supporting the creation of a Development Impact Bond (DIB), an innovative form of financing which is repaid by donors seeking specific measurable social impacts. The DIB—DFC’s first development impact bond focused on refugees—will finance a training and grant program to help refugees and vulnerable Jordanians, primarily women and youth, launch microenterprises as a sustainable source of household income.
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    Interior view of a dialysis centerPhoto Credit: Africa Healthcare Network
A DFC loan is supporting the expansion of Africa Healthcare Network, the first dialysis chain in Sub-Saharan Africa focused on expanding access to affordable and quality care. Africa Healthcare Network will use the loan to improve dialysis care in existing hospitals in Kenya, Tanzania, and Rwanda, while establishing clinics to screen for kidney disease as well as registries for patients who are at risk.
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    Ampersand motorcycles
A $9 million DFC loan helped Ampersand, a young company headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda, build a fleet of electronic motorbikes in Rwanda and expand into Kenya to provide sustainable replacements to gas-powered motorcycle taxis.
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    Indian dairy farmers processing milk
Financing and technical assistance are supporting the expansion of Milk Mantra, a startup that procures, packages, sells and delivers dairy products in India. Milk Mantra is committed to ethical procurement with a focus on fair, transparent and timely payments to farmers, along with a range of extension services to farmers.
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    photo, Indian children in classroom smile with raised hands and waving
DFC financing is helping Varthana support the thousands of small affordable private schools that fill the gap that government schools cannot meet, providing critical loans and online learning plans to help these affordable private schools weather the pandemic and stay in business.
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    kasha delivery driver on motor bike
Equity financing is helping the women-owned and women-led e-commerce business Kasha, expand its business selling personal care products to women in Kenya and Rwanda. Kasha offers an online store accessible through basic mobile phones, where consumers can browse, order, make payment and arrange for delivery. The company also works with a network of agents, most of them community health workers, who reach out to women in more remote areas to assist them with their purchases. To date, the company has served 70,000 customers, most of them low-income women.
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    photo, Indian woman standing in front of building and smiling
Local currency financing of 350 million Indian rupee is helping mortgage lender Aviom provide approximately 1,200 home loans to women in India. Aviom, which serves women borrowers in predominately rural areas, provides loans in an average amount of $4,000. Many of the women served by Aviom work in the informal economy, have undocumented income, and would otherwise not be able to access home financing. Affordable mortgages enable women to build homes they could otherwise not afford and establish a credit history.
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    Preventing blindness in Cameroon
A $2 million loan is helping the Magrabi ICO Cameroon Eye Institute provide affordable surgery to thousands of patients. The financing to this project was structured as a Development Impact Bond (DIB), a pay-for-performance loan in which lenders earn higher returns when the hospital reaches more patients. During the project’s first year, the financing helped the hospital screen more than 50,000 patients and complete more than 2,300 cataract surgeries. Low income patients received the sight-saving surgery for free or at a subsidized rate, and the quality of surgeries exceeded World Health Organization standards with nearly 70 percent of surgeries achieving a good visual outcome on the day after surgery.
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    Supporting a female entrepreneur in Mongolia
DFC's $5 million loan is helping Goyol Cashmere, a local producer of wool and cashmere knitwear, construct a new factory and purchase additional equipment in order to expand production. Cashmere is the third largest export in Mongolia, where cashmere goats are well suited for the harsh climate. The country's cashmere industry, which represents 28 percent of the world's cashmere market, provides stable incomes to over 100,000 people across the country. Goyol Cashmere sources 50 percent of its raw cashmere materials from rural herders to produce high-quality knitwear that is exported to bolster Mongolia's economy.
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    Increasing food supply in India by building a better value chain
A loan to WayCool Foods is helping this four-year old company bring more produce to market in an efficient manner that avoids spoilage. WayCool is introducing technology, strict quality controls and efficient transportation to ensure that more produce reaches consumers. Working with tens of thousands of farmers across 15 states, WayCool weighs food before it leaves the farm, conducts quality checks in warehouses, and sends electronic payments to farmers, while transporting food to on markets in temperature controlled vehicles. Farmers who work with WayCool report a 30 percent increase in income and the food they grow is sold in markets around the country and to multiple international restaurant and hotel chains. DFC’s $5.5 million loan will support the continued expansion of this “farm-to-fork” value chain.
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