Brian Trelstad is Chief Investment Officer at Acumen Fund, where he runs the global portfolio team, coordinating our investment process and post-investment management support.
Every now and again we meet compelling entrepreneurs with nascent businesses that offer real breakthroughs in how to serve the poor. Sometimes the meetings are pure happenstance, like meeting the PeePoo team at a dinner at the Skoll World Forum. Other times we find ourselves going to the pipeline: as a judge at the Global Social Venture Competition (where we first interacted with d.light, one of our current investments) or as a reviewer for Echoing Green (where we met Embrace).
As an investor who has defined our target investment size as $500,000 to $2,000,000, we are often frustrated that we can’t offer immediate assistance and a smaller investment, say $150,000, to these early stage ideas that need additional proof of concept, market feedback and a more complete team before they are ready for an Acumen Fund investment.
In most cases, we tell people to keep in touch and when they are raising their next round of capital to give us a call. But for the few with the glint in their eye and unwillingness to take no for an answer, we listen to their pitch, we offer introductions, and we serve as a sounding board during the fits and starts of their early stage of their business’s development. Ghonsla is one of those teams, whom we met at the Harvard Social Enterprise Business Plan competition in 2008. They are a building materials company to provide affordable insulation made from renewable and waste materials to underserved markets in Pakistan and beyond.
From their pilot project they have learned that the idea of improving insulation to mitigate deforestation and reduce respiratory diseases stemming from indoor air pollution makes sense. Also the dreadful images coming from Haiti have reminded us that rebuilding places from scratch will happen again and again. Developing cheap, local and green solutions to do so are as urgent as ever.
Recently, Ghonsla was selected as one of the finalist ventures for the Unreasonable Institute, a 10 week summer program designed to attract and unite 25 high impact social entrepreneurs from around the world, while incubating and accelerating their ventures through rigorous skill training and guidance from expert mentors. The institute also allows for entrepreneurs to connect with seed capital and offers a global network of support. Other finalists include a slew of impressive, early stage companies we’ve met lately – MILLEE, FrontlineSMS:Credit, Global Cycle Solutions and the Rickshaw Bank, to name a few.
So to the early stage entrepreneurs out there, some advice: keep plugging away, don’t take no for an answer and keep in touch. We may never invest, but we might be able to provide more assistance than money.
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