Economic Growth India Project #8547

Be! Fund: Investing in Young Entrepreneurs

by Be Trust

Be! Fund: Investing in Young Entrepreneurs

Project Report | Jul 5, 2013
Be! Fund goes to Mumbai!

By Lisa Heydlauff | Executive Advisor

Prabhakar's Pump Fixing Enterprise

We just had our first Investment Committee meeting in Mumbai, Maharashtra and four new entrepreneurs have passed the test to receive risk capital and begin their businesses.

Prabhakar is our youngest entrepreneur, he's only 21, and has been fixing farmers' water pump motors since he was very young. Prabhakhar's idea was to set up shop in his village and help over 3,400 farmers to fix their vital water pumps - at the moment, for most repairs, everyone has to travel over 20km away. This means farmers lose 10 days of key farming time and without water, their crops, such as grapes, are destroyed. A local workshop with the right tools and machines will mean that farmers will get a local, one day solution, half price. We've included Prabhakar's photo in this update.

Tushar wants to be a beekeeper, inspired by a documentary he saw on the Discovery Channel, he learned all about beekeeping, studied it in agricultural college and is ready to begin with 25 boxes of bees to boost the bio-diversity of the local farmland and create pure honey for sale (there's a huge demand!).

Poonam's village has faced a drought for many years, and as a result, the local leather industry which requires a lot of water, has shut down. However, the local religious tourism industry has grown. Poonam used to make recycled paper plates and bowls, and she's seen an opportunity doing the same for 'sweet boxes'. When people go to visit a shrine or temple, they take an offering of a box of sweets. Poonam has done her research, right now sweet shops get sweet boxes from over 30km away, they are often late, expensive and not bespoke. Poonam will now make sweet boxes in her village, that will be cheaper, always available (i.e. never late) and with the printing or names the shop owners would like. She'll also create jobs for 10 women who are currently unemployed.

Navnath lives in a tribal community that faces two problems, day-night electricity cuts and pervasive unemployment. Navnath has been making candles for some time now, and the demand is more than he can handle alone. He wants to buy a lot of moulds, train a lot of women and supply a lot of candles to everyone who needs them - and a lower price than anyone else, and all the time (there are often no candles in the market).

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Apr 19, 2013
Wild honey, pure spices, silk & a school bus

By Lisa Heydlauff | Executive Director

Lakshmi

We've just had a great Investment Commitee meeting where nine young entrepreneurs from BOP communities are receiving investment for their new businesses to solve problems where they live.

Neelankatesh is a beekeeper. What's different about his enterprise, is that he looks after wild bees and his honey is so pure it can be used for medicinal, ayurvedic purposes. He's already got 5 boxes of bees, an investment from Be! Fund will allow him to extend to 75 boxes of bees, pollinating the farmers' fields in his wide, wild village.

Rama is known as the spice lady. She rides her own scooter delivering fresh spices house to house and to small restaurants where she lives. You see, often spices for low-income communities are adulterated with things that just should not be there - sawdust, charcoal, even cow dung. Rama's pure fresh spices reach the poorest people at RS 50 less than other competitors, who often mix their spices with other things.

Lakshmi lives in a village where everyone is a silk worm farmer. When it's time to harvest the silk, farmers go far away to rent the bamboo silk worm mounts they need. Lakshmi's plan is to rent out 400 mounts, clean them with hairbrushes when they return and rent them out again. She'll hire five women and the village leader says "It's a good business for women"

Ravi is only 19 and almost our youngest entrepreneur (except for Yellawa who is just a few months younger). Ravi's plan is to drive a school bus to take lots of little kids to school. They can't get to school at the moment because it's just too far away. Ravi will be driving 80 children every day to school and playing musical lessons on the sound system.

Invest in a young entrepreneur in India today, they're changing the world.

Links:

Archana's Areca Leaf Plate Enterprise

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Jan 3, 2013
Good news for women entrepreneurs in 2013

By Anna-Lisa Bowans | IDEX Fellow in Social Enterprise at Be! Fund

Archana

Women@work

January 2, 2012

Written by: Anna-Lisa Bowans

As we wrap up 2012, we at Be! Fund are taking a few moments to reflect on all the work that our team and our entrepreneurs have achieved over the year. This year, we invested in 12 new entrepreneurs, including 9 women. Each of these women entrepreneurs came to us with a solid business idea that would solve a problem in her community and the daring to board the entrepreneurial roller coaster to success.

And really, 2012 has been an overwhelming success for our women entrepreneurs. Yellawa has now taken her specialty pickle business to scale and has created three jobs for young women from her Dalit community. She is a role model for local women proving that even the youngest can run their own successful and innovative businesses. Kavitha is an expert at making Jowar rotis (staple bread in North Karnataka). These rotis are in high demand in her area and she is supplying them to many hotels. Kavitha employs four women from the Dalit and Devadasi communities—empowering women from communities so bound by caste that women are rarely allowed to work outside their homes. Each woman earns Rs. 2,500 per month ($50) that they use to support the education and health of their families. Mageshwari harnesses the sun’s power to bring light to homes of her community and is a constant innovator—always developing products to meet the needs and pocketbooks of her customers. Her community faces constant power cuts, but now over 750 children study in tuition centers in 5 KGF villages every night by 60 solar lights made by Mageshwari. Mageshwari’s business has also helped more than 100 homes light up at night with solar energy.

As an early stage entrepreneur, there will certainly be challenges along the path to building a sustainable business. Jayanthi, who creates beautiful candles from recycled church wax, lives in a slum with contaminated water often making her daughters and mother fall sick. Lakshmi, who makes recycled paper bags, has had to take time off from her business to help her family through some legal troubles. Our women entrepreneurs constantly inspire us not because they don’t face challenges because they are able to build successful business in spite of them.

The stories of the positive impact of these businesses go on and on. This year’s women entrepreneurs span the age group from 20 to 35 years old; they received investments ranging from $560- $3,200; they live in urban slums and rural villages. Each business is unique to the woman running it and the community where she lives and the people she serves. But all of our women entrepreneurs have one thing in common—the commitment to establishing and running innovative businesses to solve problems in the communities where they live.

Links:

Be! Fund blog

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