ALSiSAR Impact
The JEDI Investing Approach
ALSiSAR are co-creating a unique place based investing model helping address systemic issues of underinvestment. Over 92% of all FDI in India is invested in 5 out of 29 states.
This form of empowering the local ecosystem is not only a sound economic proposition but a necessary precondition to building longer lasting peace and prosperity.
There exists considerable literature that the victims of war and violence are disproportionately women. Alongside this, the lack of local opportunities is most intensely experienced by women who are not encouraged to enter entrepreneurship or the workforce for reasons ranging from a stunted education, to low safety and business insecurity. This focus on otherwise marginalised groups, particularly women, is at the core of the JEDI approach.
AlSiSAR Impact works with the native populations in these regions to support entrepreneurial capacity, enable increased formalisation of business models and increase the growth of investable social enterprises. Their impact outlook focuses on female ownership, employment generation and climate risk as key principles for incubatee enterprises operating across these sociopolitically vulnerable and climate sensitive regions.
By de-risking investments in these businesses, the approach is to provide positive models for emulation for others in these regions.
Implementation
The approach is a deep and layered one that encompasses multi-year support and comprehensive advisory, helping entrepreneurs become ‘investment ready’ and often seeding their rounds or supporting them in their first capital raise.
Examples
1.Fastbeetle
Fastbeetle, based in Jammu and Kashmir, were finding it impossible to convince investors about the upcoming logistics business they were building in key war-torn Kashmiri districts.
With our support, they illustrated how they operated despite routine military checkposts while making critical deliveries for micro entrepreneurs (60% of these businesses being run by women across Kashmir)- all without the internet during imposed state curfews.
This service became more imperative during the Covid-19 lockdown and enabled major ecommerce players to sign contracts for all deliveries in those previously ‘unserviceable’ regions- ultimately helping them raise an initial pre-seed round from prominent impact investors for expansion and further scale across thousands of sellers in the state.
2. NagaEd
NagaEd is an ed-tech social enterprise led by Shiroi Shaiza who aims to help bring quality education to schools in remote geographies by innovating on content, delivery and accessibility.
Despite operating within an attractive sector especially as post the pandemic digital learning had skyrocketed- this had no effect on the investor concerns about the return horizon and potential risk for investments for a company operating in a remote state on the border of China and Myanmar; underpinning the need for tailored JEDI strategies.
NagaEd successfully raised its pre-seed round helping improve its digital offering and potentially expand into Nagaland across 17,000 schools in the state.
Snapshot
Focus: A double bottom line incubator. ALSiSAR catalyses local entrepreneurs and builds scalable impact-driven businesses led by underrepresented and marginalised communities across India, Nepal and Bhutan.
Location: Operate across conflict zones and frontier markets around the SE Asian Himalayan Region. This includes Jammu and Kashmir (the most militarised zone on Earth) and Nagaland (longest insurgency in Asia).
“As external support in these states is extremely low, we see the role of our incubation advisory more as a privilege to be able to engage with these entrepreneurs who are willing to trust us and our commitment as we build the enterprises with them, working within the community and mission.”