Upaya's Sreejith Nedumpully will join a panel of industry leaders to discuss the experience of supporting promising entrepreneurs in their earliest days.

Bridging the Pioneer Gap: Are We Meeting the Needs of Social Startups & What Can We Do Better?

11:45 AM - 1:15 PM, April 11 2014

Grand Ballroom A3

Hotel Renaissance, Powai, Mumbai

Over the past few years we have heard the conversation about the needs of businesses in the “Pioneer Gap“ reach a fever pitch – particularly in a frothy impact investment market that finds itself starving for more established, less risky opportunities. At the same time, a chorus of ambitious social entrepreneurs with promising models talks about finding themselves in a desert of funding and advisory support. The reality is that, if we rely on traditional venture capital models, most social investment funds will be financially unable to find, fund, and advise these companies in their infancy.

With the majority of these entrepreneurs exhausting their limited runways long before their transformative potential can be realized, there is a strong need to mobilize our peers and create an ecosystem for Pioneering Capital to fill the gap. The assembled panel will explore what’s working, what’s not, and what steps the sector can take to mobilize more resources for the next generation of effective social enterprises.

Moderator:

Ashish Karamchandani, Partner, Monitor Group

Speakers:

Sreejith Nedumpully, Director, Business Development Upaya Social Ventures

Harish Hande, MD, SELCO

Aditi Shrivastava, Head, Intellecap Impact Investment Network

Simon Desjardins, Programme Manager, Shell Foundation

Paul Breloff, Managing Director, Accion Venture Lab