Our Approach: Invest and Grow

I. Invest in Social Businesses

SOW Asia supports sophisticated early-stage to growth-stage social businesses that create positive impact on a self-sustaining basis. We use processes that are similar to venture capital funds, but our aim is to achieve a high rate of social / environmental return. The organizations we support are typically too risky, or the rate of return too low, to attract commercial funding. We are primarily focused on greater China but also review opportunities in Southeast Asia.

Our support includes:

• Tailored funding, typically debt / equity, to match each social business’ distinctive situation

• Engaged capacity-building to strengthen the social businesses

• Patient multiyear involvement to offer social businesses a chance to succeed

• Measured impact to ensure social businesses are effective and fulfilling their missions

 
For more information on our investment strategy, click here.
 

Current Portfolio

GIGA was founded by designers and architects working in China who identified an opportunity to increase the demand for green building materials and give manufacturers a market incentive to produce more of them. Learn more about GIGA’s model and its social / environmental impact here.

SolarLEAP is a non-profit organisation based in Hong Kong committed to bringing information technology to students and individuals around the world. Whether off-grid or in the heart of a city, SolarLEAP's desktop computers provide a modern, standardized computing experience.

To date, SOW Asia has provided non-financial capacity building support to SolarLEAP.

II. Grow the Space

Self-sustaining, scalable solutions to social / environmental challenges is a nascent space in Asia. There have been notable successes, such as d.Light Design, but much needs to be done. We are working to create a culture in which the objectives of social businesses are better understood and opportunities are more readily available.

NowGen

An area we are focusing on is the 'Now Generation'. Young people have demonstrated an intuitive grasp of the blended value of both financial return and positive impact. Investing in social businesses ultimately means investing in the leaders who will advance the movement. Some may decide to become social business leaders and all young people have the power to transform the thinking around these issues, regardless of the career path they choose. We seek to work with strategic partners to inspire and train young leaders around social innovation. Specifically, we stive to:

• Provide incentives, tools and credibility

• Gather and share knowledge to encourage best practices and further innovation

Coming soon - 2012 NowGen Social Innovation Challenge co-hosted with the Chinese University of Hong Kong. More information to come.