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#Dealflow: Follow the Money
M-Pesa has a new competitor, and a 10-year head start. The Kenya Bankers Association is trying to catch up to M-Pesa’s runaway success with its own mobile money service, PesaLink. The consortium of big name banks participating may give the brand some clout, but M-Pesa could be a tough to dislodge. Launched in 2007 by Safaricom, Kenya’s biggest telecom, M-Pesa has over 25 million users and claims 85 percent of the mobile money market it started; it transacted over $7 billion in the first half of 2016 alone. The banks are targeting higher-value transactions and offering free transaction up to $5 (versus M-Pesa’s $1). But M-Pesa retains the loyalty of Kenyans for whom bank accounts were too expensive. When it launched in 2007, more than 80 percent of Kenyans were unbanked.
Miyokos Kitchen raises $6 million to expand “alternative dairy” line. Vegan dairy producer Miyoko's Kitchen’s Series B investment was backed by private equity fund JMK Consumer Growth Partners, Obvious Ventures and Stray Dog Capital. The company was founded in 2014 and sells “cheese” and “butter” products in grocery stores across the U.S. Driven by concerns about obesity and diabetes (and by Instagram), the market for dairy alternatives is expected to reach $20 billion market globally by 2020, up from $8.2 billion in 2014.
LandMapp raises funds to help farmers secure land rights in Ghana. Omidyar Network and HERi Africa are backing the Dutch-based company to help smallholder farmers secure deeds to their lands. Many of the more than 500 million smallholder farmers worldwide do not have documentation of their land ownership. That makes it nearly impossible for them to get loans to invest in their farms to boost productivity and income growth. LandMapp, founded by two Amsterdam-based entrepreneurs, uses GPS data to map farmers' plots and captures an oral history of land ownership and confirms farmers' identities in order to seek certification of land deeds from local authorities. Since launching in 2015, more than 2,000 Ghanaian farmers have paid for LandMapp's service.
Commitments by TriLinc Global hit $500 million. The fund, one of the few impact vehicles open to retail investors, said its total trade financing and revolving credit to small and mid-size businesses since 2013 had surpassed the half-billion mark. With another $25.8 million committed in January, Trilinc said its current financing commitments are more than $270 million. (As of Sept. 2016, according to the most recent SEC filing publicly available, the fair value of Trilinc’s investments was $168 million). Trilinc founder Gloria Nelund has set her sights on becoming a $1.5 billion fund focused on markets across Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and Asia where access to finance is difficult for growth-stage businesses.
#Signals: Ahead of the Curve
Will Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan survive a takeover battle? CEO Paul Polman has established Unilever as a champion of corporate sustainability and himself as “the poster boy for responsible capitalism,” according to Fortune’s Alan Murray. He’ll have to fight to preserve that mantle in the face of a $143 billion hostile takeover bid from Kraft Heinz Co. Kraft Heinz was among the worst performers in Ceres’ 2015 study of how big food companies managed water risk; Unilever was the best. The company last year bought Seventh Generation, maker of eco-conscious detergents, for a reported $700 million, and earlier absorbed socially-conscious Ben & Jerry’s. Unilever’s Sustainable Living Plan is intended to halve the company’s environmental impact in half between 2008 and 2020, improve the health of one billion people – and double revenues. But the company’s shares took a hit after lower-than-expected sales in last year’s fourth-quarter, and Kraft Heinz pounced. Only a minority of investors “give two hoots” about the sustainability plan, one analyst told Fortune for its profile of Polman.
Climate action opportunities for investors now. “Investors who wait risk missing an opportunity,” write analysts at Cornerstone Capital, the sustainable investment advisory firm founded by former UBS research chief Erika Karp. Global trends will continue regardless of Trump administration moves: renewables investment is up, including by U.S. cities and states; companies are investing in more efficient water and energy use; and employment in green sectors is growing worldwide, as well as in the U.S. Cornerstone is hosting a March 1 webinar: "Climate Investing: What Can Investors Do Now?”
#2030: Long-Termism
Healthcare in your hand. By 2030, the the biggest health issues will be managed through preventative care, on mobile phones and through wearable health-monitoring devices. “Hospitals of the future will become more like NASCAR pit-stops than inescapable black holes,” says Melanie Walker, co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s Future Council on neurotechnology and brain science.
“A single scanning device will offer metabolic, functional and structural detail – combining the physics of spectroscopy, magnetic resonance and radiation,” she writes. When someone does need in-person treatment, endoscopic robots and 3D-printed tissue will replace surgeons and donated organs. “You will go to hospital to be patched up and put back on track. Some hospital practices might even go away completely, and the need for hospitalization will eventually disappear. Not by 2030, but soon after."
That's a wrap for this week! Have a great weekend. Please send any news and comments to editor@impactalpha.com.
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