Entrepreneurs explain the need for GIF Growth in new film.

The Global Innovation Fund has marked the launch of its new blended finance investment vehicle, GIF Growth, by producing a new film featuring the founders of high-impact companies in its portfolio.

GIF Growth is the next step in GIF's mission of delivering impact at scale. Statistics show that less than one in six organisations that raise seed funding can go on and raise their next round of financing in five years.

In the new film, leaders of three of GIF’s portfolio companies articulate the need for this new investment vehicle. GIF’s acting CEO, Joseph Ssentongo, and Chief Investment Officer Avinash Mishra, who leads GIF Growth, also appear in the film, outlining the fund’s goal is to deploy $100M to save and improve the lives of over 100M people in low- and middle-income countries by 2030.

Dan Schitzer, CEO and Founder of SparkMeter, is one of the entrepreneurs featured. He says:

“A lot of investors would never even have taken a look at SparkMeter or taken a look and decided to pass because of the markets that we're serving. We would have not been able to scale up the same way that we have now if it was not for the support and the funding from GIF.

“SparkMeter has now sold meters to mini grid companies in Africa that have collectively connected well over a million people to access to electricity that previously did not exist. We wouldn't have gotten to where we are today without the early support and de-risking that GIF and others took on.”

Nidhi Pant, Founder of S4S Technologies, and Aadith Moorthy, Founder and CEO of Boomitra also feature in the film.