Bangladesh SME Corporation Limited (“BSCL”) established in 2013, is an alternative SME finance and data analytics consultancy firm. It acts as a specialized intermediary providing flexible schemes of funding for entrepreneurs, start-ups and also for established SMEs operating in several economic sectors. The company has the unique capability of adapting to the client’s needs and structure funding and investment instruments accordingly in order to allow its clients to reach their desired objectives.

Key attribute: (i) i-SME platform enables robust data collection and analytics on the investee universe collected by Field Agents (ii) growing network of SME Centers nationwide.

Track Record
The company has facilitated growth in the printing industry by providing a combination of equity and debt financing to 2 local printing giants. The financing scheme involved a combination of work order financing, bridge capital financing, term loan for investment in capital equipment and equity participation to a certain degree. This has enabled the entrepreneurs to focus on improving sales and accelerate business growth with the guidance of BSCL’s management, consultancy, and accounting services. The pilot project has been immensely successful and now being emulated in multiple other projects.

DataSoft (DSFT) is a Top-3 software company in Bangladesh. With 17-years of operational track record, the company has 300 IT professionals and boasts management with deep domain expertise. Established in 1999, it is a CMMI Level 5 certified (joining an elite group of just 400 leading companies worldwide) and an award winning software & digital automation platform builder in Bangladesh.

In addition, DSFT has received numerous global recognition awards, including the Century International Quality ERA Award in the Gold category in Geneva. It is an ISO 9001:2000 certified company and the first IT company in Bangladesh to become a “Super Brand”.

Track Record
Under the MSME sector, DSFT’s Microfin360 software is rapidly gaining market share in the microfinance institution (MFI) market. The Microfin360 platform is essentially MFI in a Box combining a management information system, accounting information system and a compliance solution. DSFT is currently implementing Microfin360 across more than 3,000 branches across the nation and this number is expected to grow at a rapid clip over the coming years.

Enterprise Development Co. Limited (“EDCL”) established in 2005, is an alternative finance facilitation company with rural coverage & field agents.

Key attribute: Financing arranger and implementer of Zero Waste Model, an award winning program.

The ZWM addresses a variety of impact criteria, and can be useful across many South Asian and African countries. The mini-dairies cum bio digesters address problems such as malnutrition, unemployment, and lack of access to electricity as well as the environmental degradation caused by Bangladesh’s rapid industrialization. The core vision of EDCL is providing access to finance to family units in the fields of renewable energy, food security and provide sustainability training.

Track Record
The Company has arranged financing for 3,000+ enterprises nationwide with a 97% recovery rate. The company has also implemented 2,000+ ZWM projects nationwide, increasing sustainable energy generation and reducing household smoke which is responsible for 10% of global death (WHO).

SUPPORT For Rural Advancement is an NGO set up in 1994 with the aim of understanding the socio-economic needs of rural women and addressing them by providing microcredit, agricultural extension services and health care facilities. By making these services available to women, SUPPORT is providing them with various opportunities to be economically viable and self-reliant.

Key attribute: A licensed Microfinance Institution with automated micro-lending processes and a nationwide footprint and field agents.

In addition, they have also started raising awareness about environmental sustainability and the causes of soil degradation, as a large percentage of the rural population is professionally dependent on the agricultural sector. Free of cost healthcare services and education facilities are also provided to the members and their families, which allow them to develop basic skills and be more employable across different sectors.

ACACIA Socially Responsible Investment Management Ltd. (ACACIA), established in 2013, is a licensed asset management company and specialized financial services company focused in channeling socially responsible investments into the MSME sector of Bangladesh.

Key attribute: A licensed mutual fund manager, regulated by the Bangladesh Securities & Exchange Commission.

ACACIA provides research and analytics, indexing, impact investee sourcing, impact measurement & impact portfolio management services to asset managers, alternative lenders, think tanks and associations. In addition, ACACIA leverages its extensive networks in global financial hubs to market financial and social impact opportunities in Bangladesh to investors and channel impact investment to Bangladesh.

ARGUS CREDIT RATING SERVICES LIMITED (ACRSL) top 3 credit rating agency that specializes in SME credit evaluation. ACRSL is partnered with DP Information Group (“DP”), the premier credit rating agency of Singapore for over 30 years. Having pioneered credit rating in Singapore, DP has played an influential role in the development of the credit rating sector in China, Indonesia, and Philippines. Further, DP’s parent company, the UK based Experian Group is one of the world’s top credit reference agencies.

A first in Bangladesh, our approach introduces Digital Disruption to Sustainable Development

Technological innovation is crucial to solving one of the most intractable problems of MSME impact investing: how to cost effectively source, select, monitor and generate analytics for a large universe of MSME investments.

At the heart of our proposal is the MSME Impact Investment Platform (“Impact MSME Platform”), an “intelligent” and scalable digital platform that can shift the paradigm in impact investing by addressing this problem.

Importantly, this platform infrastructure can be used in subsequent investment rounds to scale the Fund and market it to traditional returns-focused investors as well as to other impact investment managers, thereby helping to replicate our approach and strengthen the MSME impact investing eco-system in Bangladesh.

Modern portfolio management framework approaches the investment construction and performance measurement from a two-dimensional risk-return approach. On the other hand, traditional impact investing framework approaches performance by measuring post-facto a mix of qualitative and quantitative parameters. We believe a new framework is needed that addresses the limitations of these approaches separately by combining

• A MULTI-DIMENSIONAL PORTFOLIO PRICING MODEL that incorporates social impact variables along with financial risk-returns analysis,
• A STATISTICALLY RIGOROUS IMPACT MEASUREMENT METHODOLOGY which isolates the investment impact from confounding factors and
• DYNAMIC ON-GOING IMPACT EVALUATION that can capture supplementary impact variable related data.

Leveraging the intelligence from the IMPACT MSME PLATFORM (the first of its kind globally) using the data-driven algorithms, IM STEPS aims to bring to market the STEPs IMPACT FUND.

The first of its kind in Bangladesh, the Fund will be an institutional-class impact fund focused on providing the under-served MSMEs of Bangladesh access to finance with the ultimate goal of promoting socially responsible business activities. In order to achieve this goal while generating a MARKET-COMPETITIVE RETURN, we combine both a new way of doing things and creating new structures to solve the challenges of sustainability.

Our STEPS IMPACT FUND offers investors the opportunity for social and environmental returns with risk-adjusted market, or above-market, returns. Due to no financial trade-off, we expect to see our mandate aligned with a large group of global, regional and local investors.