Defeating Global Poverty (Dave Richards): Innovative Microfinance Equity Fund
Unitus announced last week that they’ve raised a US$23 million private equity fund to invest in microfinance. I was able to catch up with Chris Brookfield, Director of Unitus Equity Fund, last week to find out more about this announcement.
Dave: What is Unitus announcing today?
Chris: Unitus is announcing the closing the Unitus Equity Fund (UEF). UEF is formed just like the other venture funds I have been a part of. The difference is that UEF is committed to investing into sustainable microfinance enterprises. It is our hope that by demonstrating that microfinance can scale rapidly and produce returns for investors that much greater amount of investment capital will follow. By increasing the capital available to microfinance companies, we increase the number of borrowers that can be served. So each new investment dollar in will translate to a new opportunity for a poor person to become an entrepreneur.
The 'close' means that we have exceeded our goal and will now be focused 100% on finding new MFI's to invest into. We closed on $23 million. …
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