OUR BLOG
Upaya Fundamentals: What Is A Job?
Jobs are the core of Upaya’s work. We help early-stage enterprises grow with investments and consulting support to create jobs for people in extreme poverty
Upaya Fundamentals: Origins And Inspiration
Many people who hear about Upaya try to compare our work to that of microfinance. It is understandable. After all, the microfinance movement captivated the world and its power and spread convinced many that this was the silver bullet to fight poverty.
Pioneering Capital Must Feed The Growth Of The Impact Economy
Impact investing as a practice and priority has evolved rapidly over the past decade but still lacks the supportive infrastructure provided by public policy, reporting standards, and industry associations that disseminate best practices.
Where Are The Jobs? Findings And Insights From Upaya’s Accelerator Application Process
We at Upaya Social Ventures have been running our accelerator program since 2017. In the previous two years, the accelerator program was focused on specific sectors that we believed have the strongest potential for job creation
One-Size-Fits-All Investment?
The segment that Upaya most often invests in, dynamic enterprises, includes companies with reliable revenue streams but not necessarily hockey-stick growth. We are okay with that because the high-growth companies that get a lot of attention are not the ones creating significant numbers of jobs, especially not jobs for the extreme poor.
The “Missing Middle” Is More Complicated
In our industry of impact investing, there has long been a lament that small and growing businesses (SGBs) are the “missing middle” of the space—these are the companies that are too large for microfinance funding and too small for traditional investors or even most impact investors
How India Overcame Its #1 Extreme Poverty Ranking
It is great news to hear, as an Indian national, that India is no longer the nation with the largest poor population, as per a study published by US-based think tank Brookings
The Need Of The Hour: Agri-Business Innovation
When I’m visiting a project site or village in India, I am often reminded that the wonderful people we are working with regularly face challenges that I do not have to contend with in my daily routine back home in the US
How Does Upaya Pick Participants For Its Accelerator Cohort?
The Upaya team heads into the weekend looking forward to a well-deserved break, having just winnowed the 281 applications for our agri-business accelerator to 15 companies that we’ll present to our selection committee
How to Become A Successful Woman Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship can feel like a daunting journey for anyone, but especially for women. There are objective realities one hears about – such as female founders nabbing only 2% of venture capital funding in 2017
2018: The Year of “I Too”?
Looking back on 2017 – dubbed “The Unexpected (and Inspiring) Year of the Woman” by the mainstream media – makes us, as women, hopeful about 2018 and what lies ahead.