InVenture

InVenture is an innovative, fast-paced mobile technology start-up that provides a credit scoring and reporting platform to financial services institutions in emerging countries. InVenture's vision is to provide a standardized global credit score for anyone with a mobile phone, thereby revolutionizing the financial services sector in emerging markets.

InVenture is working to broaden financial inclusion for individuals all over the world -- individuals who can become engines for economic growth and change the fate of their communities. InVenture has seen and heard firsthand from micro-business owners about how they are unable to expand their businesses and feel trapped in a cycle of debt and poverty.

InVenture has learned from microfinance institutions and seen that the current system of micro-credit is not enough to help businesses grow and contribute to lasting economic development. InVenture works to solve the problem of the underserved "missing middle" in developing economies by giving developing entrepreneurs the chance to expand, to employ more of their neighbors, and to lift their communities out of poverty.

By leveraging existing technology and real-time data, InVenture offers a set of tools and services to provide credit scores that are critical for entry into the formal financial sector. InVenture is currently working in India and the US.

InVenture’s first product is InSight. InSight is a mobile-enabled tool that empowers individuals to perform basic accounting, demonstrate their creditworthiness and access financial services, all through SMS. InVenture combines data collected through InSight with demographic data to create dynamic real-time credit scores which are then shared with lenders to help individuals qualify and access financial services.

InVenture is made up of a creative mix of individuals whose mission is to work where profits and impact are not mutually exclusive. The InVenture team is diverse in background, experience and interests. It has the pluck of a start-up and an investment bank’s seriousness of purpose, with team members actively rotating from the office to the field.

As it grows in its own right, it is also growing the social entrepreneurship landscape in Los Angeles.  In fact, during the early stages of its development, InVenture helped to cultivate a now-strong ecosystem of social enterprise companies and organizations for a monthly meetup event called #SocEntLA -- which continues to build upon this new niche of business-driven and impact-driven social enterprise work in Los Angeles.

Selected Awards:
America’s Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs (Top 5)
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, 2012

Wireless Innovation Project Winner (3rd place)
Vodafone Americas Foundation, 2012

Fellow (multiple employees)
Echoing Green, 2011

Fellow (Shivani Siroya)
The Unreasonable Institute, 2011

Fellow (multiple employees)
StartingBloc, 2009