Accion

At Accion Venture Lab, we’re all about unlocking opportunities for everyone! To ensure you don’t miss out on FIGS'24, we’re offering exclusive discount codes. If you're a startup, non-profit, woman investor, or student, request your discounted pass now. Send us an email at eshevchenko@accion.org to claim your spot. We can't wait to see you at the event! #FIGS24 #StartupCommunity #NonProfit #WomenInvestors #StudentDiscount #AccionVentureLab, #FMO, #Mastercard, #CenterForInclusiveGrowthI #Innovation #Networking

“India has more than two million food processing MSMEs, which operate significantly under capacity and struggle to find B2B customers,” says our Alex Qian. “Buyers and large producers have always faced a fragmented raw and processed agri goods landscape. Essentially, Agrizy ensures the buyers and producers get exactly what they want, when they want it, at reasonable prices.” Read more about how Accion’s recent investment supports Agrizy to widen its embedded financial services:

How can fintechs open opportunities for immigrant entrepreneurs in the transportation and logistics industries? Help Accion take the stage at next year’s #SXSW conference to hear more. Vote for our panel, featuring Accion Venture Lab’s Matt Schaar, Accion Opportunity Fund’s Luz Urrutia, Channel19’s Tony Singh, and Goodfynd’s Sofiat A., sharing how digital tools can enable marginalized communities to start and grow small businesses. Voting is open through August 18: https://lnkd.in/e92pRcgC

Alumni of the Harvard Business School-Accion Program on Strategic Leadership in Inclusive Finance often share that the diversity of ideas they encounter in the classroom is what makes the program unique.   Ayitey-Adjin Bernard, Acting Lead for Access to Finance at Mastercard Foundation and 2024 program participant, said, “This program puts so many diverse perspectives in one room, and reveals there is no right or wrong answer to global development challenges. In these uncertain and challenging times, the program helps participants not only to think about problems, but act on them.”    Learn more about the program and how to apply:

India is home to more than 93 million farmers and more than half a million agri-processing businesses. These entrepreneurs often struggle to access relevant markets, efficient supply chains, and responsible financial services.     Agrizy, an agritech platform, provides robust support to connect farmer-led coops and other small and medium agribusinesses to large buyers, and to embedded financial services. Accion Emerge’s latest investment will help Agrizy to expand to serve small-scale agriculture entrepreneurs in rural India. Our Alex Qian shares why we're excited to invest in Agrizy: https://lnkd.in/ehZTG-Bx

"India's $400 billion agri-processing market, even though growing by 9% annually, faces a bottleneck — only 10% of farm produce gets processed today." Through its robust digital marketplace, Agrizy is addressing pain points in agricultural supply chains and connecting farmer-led coops and other small and medium agribusinesses to buyers. Learn more about Agrizy and Accion's investment alongside Omnivore, from The Economic Times' Sutanuka Ghosal:

We’re excited to announce Accion Emerge’s investment in Agrizy, an agritech startup transforming the food processing sector in India. Through its robust digital marketplace, Agrizy is addressing the pain points in the agricultural supply chains and connecting farmer-led coops and other small and medium agribusinesses to large buyers and companies in India and across the world. This latest investment will support Agrizy to expand its access to rural markets and provide responsible financial services to smallholder farmers and other businesses to ensure India’s agricultural sector can flourish. Learn more: https://bit.ly/46vQM5z

“Digital platforms have a unique opportunity to support workers and entrepreneurs by leveraging behavioral design to enhance financial resilience.” Partnering with Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth and BancoSol, we bring responsible digital financial tools to more small business owners in Bolivia. Read more about how digital platforms can help underserved people build financial health in this article from Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth:

Join us next March for the 2025 Harvard Business School-Accion Program on Strategic Leadership in Inclusive Finance! Participants will learn from HBS’s expert faculty and distinguished leaders in a transformational experience that combines the best of strategic thinking with the most important developments spanning financial inclusion, digital technology, and impact investing to build a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges in the years ahead. Participants include leaders from financial service providers, fintechs, government, regulatory authorities, central banks, global investors, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies, nonprofits, and beyond. Learn more and apply here:

The #FinclusionWeek call for session proposals is open until the end of this week. This year marks the 10th anniversary of Financial Inclusion Week, an exciting time to participate in conversations that will influence the next decade of #FinancialInclusion. Take the chance to submit your proposals by August 2 to be a part of the leading industry event for #InclusiveFinance: bit.ly/CFI-FIW Convened by Center for Financial Inclusion (CFI).