by [sīc] Studio | [email protected]
Emerging Markets Startups Directory
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So it is. This is where we begin, with the ground truths and facts of reality—how things are. Many of these realities are hard truths, of generational poverty, of genocide, of oppression, of violent violations of human rights. But, like the literary notation “[sīc]” allows, we acknowledge, but are not distracted by, the symptomatic flaw to then get at the core, in this case the root causes of debilitating societal issues.
We believe that missing from current peacebuilding and development frameworks is a focused attention on the underlying economic, social, and cultural (ESC) dimensions at the sub-regional and local levels. We believe that startups and increased capital flows can build out that robust foundation.
This begins with seeing how it is; but only with considered interventions can we later look back and see progress from how it was, sīc erat.
We invite you to join us in this endeavor.
We invest in emerging markets with the belief that these latent markets are largely untapped — the only thing missing is the capital flow.
The reason these markets have such low capital flows is because of the layers of risk. Our approach minimizes your risk while maximizing your venture returns and positive impact.
We do this by a frank re-aligning of incentives.
There’s a confluence of 2 things that I find particularly worrying:
This confluence seems to only amplify existing power imbalances that have entrenched much of the emerging market. And as much as aid has its place, I see capital mechanisms as more empowering, giving more than just a voice, but a say.
Since my time living on the Thai-Burma border region, I’ve been looking for viable ways to blend capital with development economics, but haven’t been able to satisfactorily crack that code. Recently, I’ve had a few (potential) breakthroughs.
Our decisions around which country to enter are based on macroeconomic and development economics research. We look for a specific balance of financial frictions with certain macroeconomic indicators.
This has led us to the following criteria when assessing an emerging market and its compatibility with this Fund:
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Long-run Returns to Private Equity in Emerging Markets by Shawn Cole, Martin Melecky, Florian Mölders & Tristan Reed
DOI 10.3386/w27870
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From these criteria, our working list of countries of particular interest to us are (in no particular order):
[ sīc ] Ventures Search Fund Deck.pdf