The Blended Finance Company

🎧 "What’s even more encouraging is that these graduates are exceeding our income projections, securing great jobs, and earning five times more than the country’s median income. Many come from households surviving on just $2 a day, and their success is not only transforming their own lives but also lifting their families out of poverty." - Batya Blankers, CEO, CHANCEN International, in a conversation with Nirav Khambhati on The Blended Finance Podcast. In this podcast, Batya breaks down Income Share Agreements and reflects on the motivations that led her to support student finance. She also sheds light on work being done at the CHANCEN International. Tune in to the full episode to leverage Batya's extensive expertise with Income Share Agreements. ➡️ Listen on Spotify: https://lnkd.in/gzCb6ABa ➡️ Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://lnkd.in/gPgN2Ed5 #TheBlendedFinancePodcast

We are thrilled to announce the launch of TBFC ASPYRE - Aspirational Pathways for Youth Readiness and Employment. The Skill Loan Facility, is designed to provide young individuals from low-income households with the financial support they need to develop in-demand skills and access better career opportunities. Today, many deserving young people from underserved communities face significant barriers to accessing skill loans, denying them a shot as aspirational careers and upward economic mobility. With this new initiative, we aim to bridge that gap by enabling access to loans specifically for aspirational skill development programs across industries that align with strong job growth and student aspirations. Unique features: ✅ Future income based underwriting: Youth can now access skill loans regardless of family financial backgrounds ✅ Student friendly loan products: Tailored loan repayment options designed to fit the needs of young professionals starting their careers. ✅ All stakeholders aligned on positive student outcomes: Design features ensure all stakeholders are working towards students pursuing and continuing in aspirational jobs We are grateful to our partners - 360 ONE Foundation, Varthana and Virohan for co-creating this facility and championing solutions that unlock aspirational jobs for youth. We look forward to welcoming other partners on-board to help scale the reach and impact of ASPYRE. Our mission is to give every young person the pathway to a brighter future, regardless of their financial background. Together, we can help them rise, thrive, and transform their lives. #TBFCDelivered #TBFCASPYRE 360 ONE 360 ONE Asset 360 ONE Wealth Karan Bhagat Yatin Shah Anshuman Maheshwary Anup Maheshwari Sanjay Wadhwa Saumya Lashkari Navin Upadhyaya Ronak Sheth Anil Mascarenhas Mardav Gala Sneha Kailash Varthana Brajesh Mishra Virohan Archit Jayaswal The Blended Finance Company Aparna Dua Nirav Khambhati Tushar Thakkar David Vishal Proddok Samyuktha Saravanan Jugal Bharwani Avni Shroff Mehta

Our Founder and CEO, Kartik Desai, moderated an engaging panel on Innovative Financing Mechanisms: Blended Finance and More at the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA) Green Returns Conference on December 3rd 2024. The discussion brought together an esteemed group of experts to explore the critical role of blended finance in addressing climate challenges and achieving SDGs: ⏺️Samonnoi Banerjee – Advisor, Allied Climate Partners ⏺️Laurent Gonnet– Lead Financial Sector Specialist, The World Bank ⏺️Aparna Dua – Director, The Blended Finance Company ⏺️Himanshu Sikka– Chief Strategy & Diversification Officer, IPE Global Limited The panel shared concrete recommendations on what can be done to enable the uptake of blended finance transactions to drive more private investments for sustainable development. 🔹 Regulatory Evolution: The need for reforms in CSR policies to allow capital blending, coupled with top-down nudges from the Ministry of Finance. 🔹 Scalable Solutions: Establishing Blended Finance Academies and scale facilities to convene diverse partners and drive standardized structures. 🔹 Capacity Building: Creating sandbox environments for piloting solutions and launching a Project Support Facility to identify and support bankable climate projects. Blended finance has the power to bridge gaps between public, private, and philanthropic capital to unlock transformative investments. It’s a strategic step towards ensuring that climate mitigation and adaptation efforts gain the traction they need in India and beyond. Thank you to IVCA for creating a platform to discuss such a vital topic, and to the panelists for sharing their insights. We look forward to translating these recommendations into action! #BlendedFinance #Sustainability #ClimateAction #DesaiAndAssociates #InnovativeFinance

#UnblendingFinance Week 4: Returnable grants Welcome back! This week, we’re describing an innovative instrument that is highly flexible and allows for rapid, but sustainable, expansion of financial access to segments that are not served by traditional financial institutions: returnable grants. Returnable grants combine the flexibility provided by grants with long-term sustainability, by adding an (often non-binding) obligation of repayment. Repayment does not include any premium or interest, and there are no collateral requirements. Repayment terms are often flexible and can be tied to a program's success, which allows recipients to focus on impact without the stress of a heavy financial burden. This instrument is a relatively new addition to the development finance ecosystem, and the exact contours are evolving. Rationale behind utilising returnable grants: - Rapid financial response / access (e.g. after a climate calamity): Returnable grants provide capability for rapid response to urgent needs like disaster recovery or supply chain disruptions, bypassing the delays tied to the processes that underlie traditional financing. - Bridge to formal credit: Returnable grants offer first-time borrowers with access to capital that has repayment structures that simulate loan processes. This helps build repayment discipline and credit histories, preparing beneficiaries like women farmers and entrepreneurs for formal bank financing. - Supporting innovation: Returnable grants can help de-risk early-stage ideas / pilots. Repayment can be tied to achieving key milestones, ensuring the focus stays on executions and impact, without the pressure of repayment that are typical in traditional debt models. Additional Reads: "Returnable grants: Reimagining credit for a better normal" by Varad Pande (वरद पाण्डे) and Priya Naik: https://lnkd.in/dEjZbjhS 👉 Question for you: What might be some innovative and new use cases for returnable grants? Share your thoughts below!

Meet our Manager, Shivam Jumani - a key driver of our growth and impact at The Blended Finance Company. We’re expanding our team! If you're passionate about unlocking capital for good, let’s talk. We are hiring across all levels - email us at [email protected]. #TBFCareers

🚀 We’re Hiring: Associate [Location: Mumbai/New Delhi] We're looking for dynamic individuals to join our team. If you're passionate about sustainable finance and eager to contribute to transformative projects, we want to hear from you! 🔗 To learn more about the role and apply: https://lnkd.in/dhd9wu-v Nirav Khambhati Aparna Dua Tushar Thakkar Shivam Jumani

#GreenReturnsSummit2024 Introducing our expert: Aparna Dua, Director, The Blended Finance Company Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA) is pleased to announce that Aparna will be speaking at IVCA's GreenReturns Summit 2024. With experts like Aparna sharing her insights at GreenReturns Summit 2024, let’s aim to bridge the gap between climate finance and sustainable development. 📅 2nd-3rd December 2024 📍 New Delhi Join us at GreenReturns Summit 2024, where visionaries, investors, and policymakers will gather to unlock India’s trillion-dollar climate investment potential. Register here: https://lnkd.in/d4ZmZAkm For more details, contact [email protected] or [email protected]. Amal-Lee Amin Akhilesh Tilotia Akshay Gupta, CFA Akshay Panth Anjali Bansal Ankur Thadani Karan Mohla Kunal Makkar Manish Jindal Prashanth Prakash Pratibha Jain Rutvik Doshi Shailesh Vickram Singh Shalabh Tandon Sophia Nadur Sridhar Narayan Vishesh Rajaram Raj Pai Samir Shah Satya Narayan Bansal Arpit Agarwal Ashok Emani Ankur Gulati Gaurav Kapoor Kaveesh Thakker Kunal Khattar Meyyappan Nagappan Mudit Narain Nakul Zaveri Prabhav Sharma Sandiip Bhammer Rajat Tandon Aakriti Bamniyal Paromita Sinha Niharika Bisht Sumeet Shetty Arya Sharma Shreya Kumar Jahnavi Mallick Mudit Johari #GreenReturnsSummit #IVCAGreenReturnsSummit2024 #GreenEconomy #ClimateFinanceIndia #NetZeroIndia #ClimateFinanceIndia

📢 #UnblendingFinance Week 3: Impact Bonds Welcome back! This week, we’re exploring impact bonds—an approach where funding is directly tied to achieving measurable social outcomes, making accountability and impact a top priority. What are Impact Bonds? Impact Bonds are innovative results-based financing mechanisms that tie funding to measurable social outcomes. Donors release funds only when predefined social objectives are achieved, ensuring accountability and effectiveness. Private investors provide upfront working capital, earning returns based on the success of the initiative, directly linking financial contributions to tangible, verified results. Why are the benefits of using an impact bond? - Aligned Incentives: Risk-investor returns are tied to developmental outcomes, driving focus on achieving agreed targets. - Risk Transfer: Donors transfer outcomes risk to investors, enabling greater support for innovative, underfunded approaches. - Enhanced Implementation: Investors fund performance management, capacity building, and innovation to help organizations meet or exceed targets. - Data-Driven Insights: Robust MEL frameworks create a strong data ecosystem, unlocking insights that improve outcomes and influence the broader impact space. Additional Reads: 1. India’s first skill impact bond: https://nsdcindia.org/sib 2. "Bond route to improving female presence in labour" by Abha Thorat-Shah and Tushar Thakkar: https://lnkd.in/dbcfSXMW 👉 Question for you: How do you think outcome-based models like these could reshape giving in India? Share your thoughts below!

📢 #UnblendingFinance Week 2: Understanding Guarantees & Risk Insurance in Blended Finance Welcome back! This week, we’re diving into three powerful instruments that help make blended finance transactions more attractive to private investors: partial guarantees, first-loss guarantees, and risk insurance. What are they? Guarantees and risk insurance serve as “credit enhancements,” which public or philanthropic capital provides at below-market rates to improve the risk/return profile for private investors. These tools don’t just fund a project—they’re designed to encourage private sector participation by reducing risk. How do they work: - Partial Guarantees: These cover only a portion of potential losses if the project underperforms. By offering partial protection, they provide a “safety net” that can make riskier projects more appealing to private investors without covering the full risk. - First-Loss Guarantees: A first-loss guarantee absorbs the initial tranche of losses, protecting other investors from the project’s riskiest phase. This can be especially reassuring to risk-averse investors, as they know their investment is shielded from early-stage setbacks. - Risk Insurance: Unlike partial or first-loss guarantees, risk insurance offers coverage against specific types of risks (e.g., market fluctuations, operational risks). This helps reduce uncertainty for investors by protecting them from losses tied to specific, predefined events. India’s unique approach: In India, guarantees play a significant role in blended finance, used in nearly 1 in 2 transactions—a higher rate than the global trend, where concessional debt and equity are more common. This reliance on guarantees highlights India’s innovative approach to drawing private capital into sustainable development projects. Additional resources: - “Better Gurantees, Better Finance” Report by The Blended Finance Taskforce: https://lnkd.in/dywUbF5J - “Demystifying Legal & Regulatory Regime for Blended Finance in India” MasterClass By Impact Investors Council and Trilegal: https://lnkd.in/dhdQyTfY 👉 Question for you: How can guarantees be applied effectively in your sector to drive impact? Let us know in the comments!

📢 Introducing #UnblendingFinance: Simplifying the Complex World of Blended Finance! Welcome to Week 1 of our educational journey where we’ll be “unblending” the complexities of blended finance. So, what does it mean to “unblend” finance? At The Blended Finance Company, #UnblendingFinance means breaking down the jargon, simplifying the structures, and clarifying the strategies behind blended finance. Our goal? To make this powerful tool accessible and understandable for everyone—from seasoned investors to curious newcomers. The Basics of Blended Finance: Blended Finance implies combining different types of capital typically using public or philanthropic capital to attract private sector investment for sustainable development projects. However it can also include structures where private capital acts as a bridge to incentivise better performance in donor funded programs (Outcomes Oriented Financing). By combining different sources of funding, it aims to achieve both financial returns and social impact, helping close the enormous funding gap for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Why This Matters With a $4.2 trillion funding gap to meet the SDGs in developing countries, blended finance can play a critical role. But first, we need to unblend and understand it! Additional Reads:  Primer on Blended Finance by Convergence: https://lnkd.in/guq_Q6pf  Blended Finance in India: A decade of Blended Finance in India and what lies ahead by Asha Impact and Impact Investors Council: https://lnkd.in/dcsqACs5 👉 Question for you: What aspects of blended finance are you most curious about? Drop your questions or thoughts below, and we’ll tackle them in future posts!