Kaleidofin is a fintech platform that provides complete financial solutions for excluded individuals and households. The platform propels under-banked customers towards meeting their real life goals by providing intuitive and tailored financial solutions. Their solutions take into account the financial roadblocks and vulnerability that these segments, such as volatile income streams and limited understanding of the fine print in financial products. Kaleidofin creates individual profiles of households based on several sources and uses that information to tailor its services for each customer. It also provides curated, goal-based financial solutions to people in the underbanked segments. It will leverage the full India stack, existing networks, analytics, structuring, and user-centered design to drive outcomes for customers, in the process Kaleidofin was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Kaleidofin is a fintech platform that provides complete financial solutions for excluded individuals and households. The platform propels under-banked customers towards meeting their real life goals by providing intuitive and tailored financial solutions. Their solutions take into account the financial roadblocks and vulnerability that these segments, such as volatile income streams and limited understanding of the fine print in financial products. Kaleidofin creates individual profiles of households based on several sources and uses that information to tailor its services for each customer. It also provides curated, goal-based financial solutions to people in the underbanked segments. It will leverage the full India stack, existing networks, analytics, structuring, and user-centered design to drive outcomes for customers, in the process Kaleidofin was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India.
Arthan Finance is a non-banking financial company (NBFC) that specializes in loans for self-employed nano and micro-entrepreneurs in small cities. It specializes in providing growth capital, secured and unsecured loans, and supply chain finance to allow self-employed entrepreneurs and micro-enterprises to access products conveniently and at an affordable rate.
ConveGenius is a social enterprise that has been leading the way in the development and deployment of technology platforms that leverage conversational AI and big data analytics to drive meaningful change in emerging markets. ConveGenius provides personalized and adaptive learning solutions through its PAL platform that adapts content to individual student needs. The platform is equipped with real-time impact dashboards to provide data and insights to stakeholders to enhance decision-making and continuously improve implementation.
DigsConnect is the largest student accommodation marketplace ion the African continent, with dual headquarters in Cape Town and London. They list 1.3 million beds worldwide and have connected more than 88 000 landlords and students since launching in January 2018. Their vision is to create a self sustaining community of people listing and finding safe accommodation options close to places of learning, and a place where lifelong friendships are made.
New Apprenticeship is a transformative 15-month tech apprenticeship program designed to give recent grads the skills they need to thrive in the workforce and provide employers with highly qualified and productive talent.
Blowhorn is India's leading intracity logistics provider. We operate in multiple cities and offer forward, reverse logistics for first, middle and last mile within cities
Kings Learning is an ed-tech startup funded by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation & Village. Kings Learning aims to provide employability focused English language and communication skills training through innovative technology products. Kings Learning's flagship product, the enguru Spoken English app, already has over 28 lakhs users. Available in 28 languages, enguru teaches you English in mother tongue right from the basics up to more complex industry-specific functional English that improves your employability. Kings Learning runs various app-based and teacher-led programs for corporates, government schools and colleges and training institutes pan India.
Private Equity Round in 2021
Kinara Capital is a financing company that provides flexible collateral-free loans to small business entrepreneurs. The company is focused on lending to growing businesses that require funding for working capital, capital assets, and start-up needs. It focuses on industries such as agri-products, handicraft production, water, food, and energy. Kinara Capital provides personalized customer service with a fast turnaround time by blending data-driven insights. Kinara Capital has been named by IFC/World Bank as ‘Bank of the Year-Asia’ in 2019 and Financial Times ranked it among the Top 100 High-Growth Companies in Asia-Pacific. It was founded in 2011 by Hardika Shah and is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Avanti Platform is an open-access digital financial spine, flexible enough for users and partners to create, curate and deploy the financial products
Awign is a work fulfillment platform specializing in gig workforce and provider of last-mile delivery services. It operates in sectors of education-technology, hospitality, e-commerce, mobility, information technology, and financial technology. The startup also fulfills on-the-ground work such as auditing, diligence, assessments, proctoring, new business development, and digital gigs for clients, including Swiggy, ITC, Bigbasket, Britannia, and Aditya Birla Capital, among others. Awign also provides work opportunities to college students, graduates, and women wanting to come back to work, and is solving unemployment, under-employment, and skilling problems. IIT-alumni Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet Singh, and Praveen Sah founded Awign in Bangalore, Karnataka, India in 2016.
Nepris is a cloud-based platform that connects industry professionals with K-16 classrooms, adult job seekers and out of school youth to bring real world relevance and career exposure to all learners. Nepris matches the skills of working professionals to learning objectives and virtually connects them with students to bring abstract lessons to life, offer project mentoring and evaluation, virtual tours, mock interviews and virtual work place experiences. Nepris makes it easy for educators to leverage industry connections to bring real world knowledge and skills to students, while providing a reliable platform for companies and regional intermediaries (like workforce boards, chamber, STEM hubs) to easily and effectively engage current workforce with the future workforce.
Salesken is a conversational intelligence platform that helps sales teams engage with their customers better. Salesken improves revenue per representative by developing insights on gaps in their sales calls and bridging the gap with real-time cues to the sales reps. It helps sales teams improve performance and reduce acquisition costs. Salesken's customers include the world's largest companies in Education, Finance, and Software. They use Salesken to analyze every sales conversation and assist their reps in real-time talking points.
iMerit is a leading AI data solutions company providing high-quality data across computer vision, natural language processing, and content services that power machine learning and artificial intelligence applications for large enterprises. iMerit provides end-to-end data labeling technologies and solutions to Fortune 500 companies in a wide array of industries including agricultural AI, autonomous vehicles, commerce, geospatial, government, financial services, medical AI, and technology. iMerit is headquartered in the United States, with large CV and NLP teams in India, US, Bhutan and Europe. iMerit investors are Omidyar Network, Dell.org, Khosla Ventures, and British International Investment, visit imerit.net. Its team of more than 5,000 full-time staff includes over 50% women. Founded by Radha Basu, iMerit is based in San Jose, California.
Awign is a work fulfillment platform specializing in gig workforce and provider of last-mile delivery services. It operates in sectors of education-technology, hospitality, e-commerce, mobility, information technology, and financial technology. The startup also fulfills on-the-ground work such as auditing, diligence, assessments, proctoring, new business development, and digital gigs for clients, including Swiggy, ITC, Bigbasket, Britannia, and Aditya Birla Capital, among others. Awign also provides work opportunities to college students, graduates, and women wanting to come back to work, and is solving unemployment, under-employment, and skilling problems. IIT-alumni Annanya Sarthak, Gurpreet Singh, and Praveen Sah founded Awign in Bangalore, Karnataka, India in 2016.
Online home services platform that connects homeowners with trusted service professionals. SweepSouth aims to modernize home services and to be the African pioneers in bringing technology to the industry. With over seven thousand service provider and thousands of satisfied customers being served monthly across 4 countries, company is barely scratch the surface when it comes to the addressable market. The mission is to create happy homes by providing dignified, flexible work at decent pay to their service providers.
Blowhorn is India's leading intracity logistics provider. We operate in multiple cities and offer forward, reverse logistics for first, middle and last mile within cities
Private Equity Round in 2019
Kinara Capital is a financing company that provides flexible collateral-free loans to small business entrepreneurs. The company is focused on lending to growing businesses that require funding for working capital, capital assets, and start-up needs. It focuses on industries such as agri-products, handicraft production, water, food, and energy. Kinara Capital provides personalized customer service with a fast turnaround time by blending data-driven insights. Kinara Capital has been named by IFC/World Bank as ‘Bank of the Year-Asia’ in 2019 and Financial Times ranked it among the Top 100 High-Growth Companies in Asia-Pacific. It was founded in 2011 by Hardika Shah and is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Eduvanz is a fintech Non-banking Finance Company for students seeking financial assistance. Its platform collaborates with various educational institutes to offer unsecured loan products that can be availed through a quick and easy online process that pr pupils and academic aspirants with transparent and secure financial assistance to make education universally accessible.
Private Equity Round in 2019
Shiksha Finance is a RBI licensed Non Bank Finance Company (NBFC) providing loans for asset creation, working capital and school fees in the education sector. Their loans are targeted at education entrepreneurs who seek to improve access to quality education with a particular emphasis on middle and low-income communities. Such entrepreneurs are typically driven by a mission to deliver higher quality education outcomes for children in their neighborhood. It is not uncommon for such schools to face a lack of funds to expand their classrooms and physical infrastructure, besides having inadequate access to academic and extracurricular tools for their students. This lack of capital is what Shiksha Finance aims to address, by providing finance and loans.
Kings Learning is an ed-tech startup funded by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation & Village. Kings Learning aims to provide employability focused English language and communication skills training through innovative technology products. Kings Learning's flagship product, the enguru Spoken English app, already has over 28 lakhs users. Available in 28 languages, enguru teaches you English in mother tongue right from the basics up to more complex industry-specific functional English that improves your employability. Kings Learning runs various app-based and teacher-led programs for corporates, government schools and colleges and training institutes pan India.
IMAX Program is a data driven personalization education product that builds learning genome using school assessments.
BetterLesson connects K-12 educators with comprehensive professional learning solutions that help them thrive in an increasingly complex world. Through research-based professional development centered on student outcomes, educators gain the necessary skills to create meaningful student-centered learning experiences that meet all students’ needs. We provide intentionally defined learning pathways and self-directed courses supported by deep-dive Workshops, job-embedded 1:1 Coaching, and supportive Learning Walks that guide strategic learning across a district to achieve outcomes for all students in and beyond the classroom.
Kinara Capital is a financing company that provides flexible collateral-free loans to small business entrepreneurs. The company is focused on lending to growing businesses that require funding for working capital, capital assets, and start-up needs. It focuses on industries such as agri-products, handicraft production, water, food, and energy. Kinara Capital provides personalized customer service with a fast turnaround time by blending data-driven insights. Kinara Capital has been named by IFC/World Bank as ‘Bank of the Year-Asia’ in 2019 and Financial Times ranked it among the Top 100 High-Growth Companies in Asia-Pacific. It was founded in 2011 by Hardika Shah and is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Private Equity Round in 2017
Kinara Capital is a financing company that provides flexible collateral-free loans to small business entrepreneurs. The company is focused on lending to growing businesses that require funding for working capital, capital assets, and start-up needs. It focuses on industries such as agri-products, handicraft production, water, food, and energy. Kinara Capital provides personalized customer service with a fast turnaround time by blending data-driven insights. Kinara Capital has been named by IFC/World Bank as ‘Bank of the Year-Asia’ in 2019 and Financial Times ranked it among the Top 100 High-Growth Companies in Asia-Pacific. It was founded in 2011 by Hardika Shah and is headquartered in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India.
Varthana is a financial service company that offers school and student solutions to low-cost private schools. The company partners with education entrepreneurs who are committed to increasing access to high-quality education in low-income communities.
Nepris is a cloud-based platform that connects industry professionals with K-16 classrooms, adult job seekers and out of school youth to bring real world relevance and career exposure to all learners. Nepris matches the skills of working professionals to learning objectives and virtually connects them with students to bring abstract lessons to life, offer project mentoring and evaluation, virtual tours, mock interviews and virtual work place experiences. Nepris makes it easy for educators to leverage industry connections to bring real world knowledge and skills to students, while providing a reliable platform for companies and regional intermediaries (like workforce boards, chamber, STEM hubs) to easily and effectively engage current workforce with the future workforce.
NEST Education operates high quality Knowledge-Centers , catering to the knowledge demand of low and middle income group population of urban India. They use technology platforms to provide access to world class content to their students through different media such as Tablets and Interactive Screens. They believe that the best way to transform young lives with knowledge and education is to tap them early, and their programs start for children aged 6 years and above.
Kings Learning is an ed-tech startup funded by Michael & Susan Dell Foundation & Village. Kings Learning aims to provide employability focused English language and communication skills training through innovative technology products. Kings Learning's flagship product, the enguru Spoken English app, already has over 28 lakhs users. Available in 28 languages, enguru teaches you English in mother tongue right from the basics up to more complex industry-specific functional English that improves your employability. Kings Learning runs various app-based and teacher-led programs for corporates, government schools and colleges and training institutes pan India.
Blowhorn is India's leading intracity logistics provider. We operate in multiple cities and offer forward, reverse logistics for first, middle and last mile within cities
Chipper Sage aspires to be among the best companies in the business of providing research critical products which facilitate easier learning of difficult concepts for children. Our beneficiaries are children in the age group 2 yrs - 14 yrs. With our products, we want to make the process of learning not just fast and effective but essentially - very interesting, joyful and experiential. We dream of doing that across a wide set of knowledge areas.
SelectJobs is a provider of jobs for candidates at the bottom of the pyramid typical positions are delivery boys, sales, retail, insurance, electricians, plumber, mason etc. They aggregate jobs from several companies in India and the Middle-East and provide these as job opportunities to disadvantaged and economically-backward youth.
Skillveri enables better quality delivery of practical vocational skill training at significantly lesser costs, through its innovative simulators. Its first simulator, AURA, is an award winning welding simulator which is helping bridge the shortage of 2.2 Million welders in India. AURA has found acceptance across leaders in industry and vocational training institutes.
Shiksha Finance is a RBI licensed Non Bank Finance Company (NBFC) providing loans for asset creation, working capital and school fees in the education sector. Their loans are targeted at education entrepreneurs who seek to improve access to quality education with a particular emphasis on middle and low-income communities. Such entrepreneurs are typically driven by a mission to deliver higher quality education outcomes for children in their neighborhood. It is not uncommon for such schools to face a lack of funds to expand their classrooms and physical infrastructure, besides having inadequate access to academic and extracurricular tools for their students. This lack of capital is what Shiksha Finance aims to address, by providing finance and loans.
MasteryConnect helps educators identify levels of student understanding, target students for intervention, personalize learning, and use data to evaluate their own practice. It specializes in the fields of educational technology, software as a service, education, and professional development. The company was founded in 2009 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
OnlineTyari is a web and mobile app platform delivering educational contents, mock tests and guidance for students and job aspirants preparing for various exams in India. The company has partnered with various educational institutions, coaching institutes and individual tutors who provide quality material for various examinations like IBPS, SSC, UPSC, GATE, etc. OnlineTyari android app is one of top apps in education category with a download base of more than 2.5 million. The company also has a window phone app which has been topping the education category on windows app store.
Nepris is a cloud-based platform that connects industry professionals with K-16 classrooms, adult job seekers and out of school youth to bring real world relevance and career exposure to all learners. Nepris matches the skills of working professionals to learning objectives and virtually connects them with students to bring abstract lessons to life, offer project mentoring and evaluation, virtual tours, mock interviews and virtual work place experiences. Nepris makes it easy for educators to leverage industry connections to bring real world knowledge and skills to students, while providing a reliable platform for companies and regional intermediaries (like workforce boards, chamber, STEM hubs) to easily and effectively engage current workforce with the future workforce.
ConveGenius is a social enterprise that has been leading the way in the development and deployment of technology platforms that leverage conversational AI and big data analytics to drive meaningful change in emerging markets. ConveGenius provides personalized and adaptive learning solutions through its PAL platform that adapts content to individual student needs. The platform is equipped with real-time impact dashboards to provide data and insights to stakeholders to enhance decision-making and continuously improve implementation.
The Jefferson Education Accelerator (JEA) brings together world-class researchers and promising education technology companies to identify solutions that are having a positive impact on student outcomes. Unlike other ed tech accelerators that focus on early-stage startups, JEA targets growth stage education companies, and provides them with business mentorship, access to a network of forward-thinking K-12 and higher education institutions, and the opportunity to work with leading researchers and practitioners to evaluate the efficacy of their products and tools. Through the Jefferson Education Fund, JEA also provides access to investment capital for select ventures in promising companies that show good results.
BetterLesson connects K-12 educators with comprehensive professional learning solutions that help them thrive in an increasingly complex world. Through research-based professional development centered on student outcomes, educators gain the necessary skills to create meaningful student-centered learning experiences that meet all students’ needs. We provide intentionally defined learning pathways and self-directed courses supported by deep-dive Workshops, job-embedded 1:1 Coaching, and supportive Learning Walks that guide strategic learning across a district to achieve outcomes for all students in and beyond the classroom.
iSTAR provides training to better equip college graduates with critical success skillsets required for business and commerce graduates to immediately be employable in their specialty upon graduation.
iMerit is a leading AI data solutions company providing high-quality data across computer vision, natural language processing, and content services that power machine learning and artificial intelligence applications for large enterprises. iMerit provides end-to-end data labeling technologies and solutions to Fortune 500 companies in a wide array of industries including agricultural AI, autonomous vehicles, commerce, geospatial, government, financial services, medical AI, and technology. iMerit is headquartered in the United States, with large CV and NLP teams in India, US, Bhutan and Europe. iMerit investors are Omidyar Network, Dell.org, Khosla Ventures, and British International Investment, visit imerit.net. Its team of more than 5,000 full-time staff includes over 50% women. Founded by Radha Basu, iMerit is based in San Jose, California.
Gray Matters provides services that include early childhood assessments, impact assessments, and competitive assessments. They build individual growth plans for primary and secondary school students. The company believes in the ability of data and evaluations to unlock the potential of millions of children and prepare them for the future.
IMPL has created and proved a unique distribution model which reaches inside villages through VLEs (Village Level Entrepreneurs). The VLE model has created viable businesses even in smaller villages. The process of participative product testing and evaluation by end users in actual field conditions makes adoption quick and cost effective. Focusing on rural households as a unit and building a product portfolio to meet the multiple needs of a family and enterprise has created a viable business proposition for small entrepreneurs in the village.
Sub-K means "for everyone" in Hindi language and below "one thousand" in English , indicating touch points within 1,000 meters distance, offering transactions of less than 1,000 rupees , providing access to less than 1,000 households at a cost of 1,000 paisa. Basix Sub-K iTransactions Ltd., is a subsidiary company under BASIX Social Enterprise Group, started in 2010 with a vision to provide technology enabled transactional platform to the unbanked population. Sub-K operates, manages, and controls inclusive transactions on end-to-end basis through recruiting, training and equipping local entrepreneurs as Business Correspondent agents who serve as human ATMs at the last mile of connectivity between the Bank and the end consumer, through mobile/kiosk based technology. Sub-K creates a self-propagating eco-system for profitability and sustainability of the BC sub-agent, Bank, and Sub-K, ultimately serving the customers with real time banking and non-banking solutions. Sub-K is a service company that offers affordable, accessible and scalable digital payment solutions to the BoP segment in rural and urban areas and seeks to bridge the digital divide and create a “financially included society”. Any customer with a bank account can walk into these BC outlets and avail banking services - cash deposit, cash withdrawal, remittance, fund transfer, balance enquiry, mini statement, loan repayment etc. Basix Sub-K facilitates business of micro-entrepreneurs through microcredit, insurance, pensions, farm loans, personal loans, vehicle loans. Government payments to citizens, Aadhaar card, PAN card services are also facilitated at some of these outlets. Non-banking services are also offered for enhancing the income of the BC agent and offer convenience to customers.
Ashv Finance serves the ‘missing middle’ enterprises working in sectors which make a positive Environmental, Social and Governance Impact. IntelleGrow offers debt without limiting them on their vintage or the security value offered for the loan – instead, the proposition is based on trajectory of business cashflows. It is not only lending from its Balance Sheet but also syndicating and arranging debt from other sources – gradually emerging as a debt solutions provider for ‘early-stage’, ‘high-growth’ small and growing businesses (SGB) in India.
MasteryConnect helps educators identify levels of student understanding, target students for intervention, personalize learning, and use data to evaluate their own practice. It specializes in the fields of educational technology, software as a service, education, and professional development. The company was founded in 2009 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Gray Matters provides services that include early childhood assessments, impact assessments, and competitive assessments. They build individual growth plans for primary and secondary school students. The company believes in the ability of data and evaluations to unlock the potential of millions of children and prepare them for the future.
LabourNet is a social enterprise that creates sustainable benefits for workers in the informal sector by offering them a platform to access vocational education and training services which will in turn build capacities of workers. It attempts to provide financial inclusion, social protection and welfare services to unorganized workers, LabourNet focuses on improving workers lives through the following strategies: •Improving productivity through a process of continuous assessment and skill training •Facilitating work linkages •Enabling workers to build an identity through certification •Facilitating access to some social protection as a first step to social security •Linking workers to state sponsored social protection schemes (i.e. construction workers welfare board, unorganized sector workers welfare board etc.) •Facilitating financial inclusion by opening bank accounts and encouraging workers to participate in bank linked savings programs on a case to case basis
Arohan 8392Oll9l3is one of the few NBFC-MFIs in India to offer loans ranging from INR 10000 to as high as INR 100 lakh. It works with strong, local partners on the ground to further improve its reach in the remotest locations of its focus low-income geographies. Arohan also offers financial safety net products such as and non-financial products to its customers at affordable costs.
Private Equity Round in 2013
Micro Housing Finance Corporation Limited (“MHFC”) was incorporated on May 16, 2008 with the objective to provide housing finance for lower income households (mostly in the informal sector) in urban India. One of the issues stalling the development of low income housing is the lack of finance available to lower income households (especially those without documentation to prove incomes) to buy such homes. MHFC was set up to specifically address this gap. The company has received the necessary regulatory clearance from the National Housing Bank ("NHB") in the form of the Certificate of Registration ("COR").
Ashv Finance serves the ‘missing middle’ enterprises working in sectors which make a positive Environmental, Social and Governance Impact. IntelleGrow offers debt without limiting them on their vintage or the security value offered for the loan – instead, the proposition is based on trajectory of business cashflows. It is not only lending from its Balance Sheet but also syndicating and arranging debt from other sources – gradually emerging as a debt solutions provider for ‘early-stage’, ‘high-growth’ small and growing businesses (SGB) in India.
MasteryConnect helps educators identify levels of student understanding, target students for intervention, personalize learning, and use data to evaluate their own practice. It specializes in the fields of educational technology, software as a service, education, and professional development. The company was founded in 2009 and headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah.
GRAS Academy is a vocational and employability training company. It also offers vocational training courses on mobile repairing, accounting software, hardware, entrepreneurship development, corporate capacity development training, and institutional training for professional development.
Kaivalya Education Foundation is a behavior change and systems transformation organization tackling the most difficult issues in the educational system. It creates and implements technological and structural procedures, and it develops the leadership skills of students, educators, and community school heads.
SwadhaarFinServe (Mumbai) focuses on providing services to the economically active poor in the city of Mumbai and other urban areas. As a pioneer in providing individual lending loans within the Indian context, Swadhaar is proving that microcredit can be efficiently delivered even in the most desperate urban conditions. Mumbai has one of the largest populations of urban poor. Success here will reach millions of clients and create a new lending methodology applicable to other mega-cities. Swadhaar FinServe was set up by the promoters of Swadhaar FinAccess, its associate non-profit company.
Ujjivan Financial Services Limited, founded in 2005 and headquartered in Bengaluru, India, specializes in providing a comprehensive range of financial services aimed at economically active poor individuals in urban and semi-urban areas. The company offers a variety of products, including micro and rural finance, housing loans, personal and vehicle loans, and loans for micro and small businesses. Additionally, Ujjivan provides group and individual insurance products. Its subsidiary, Ujjivan Small Finance Bank Limited, was established in 2016 and focuses on serving financially unserved and underserved segments through banking products, including savings and current accounts, fixed deposits, and an array of loan offerings such as agricultural, educational, and personal loans. Ujjivan operates a significant network of banking outlets and ATMs, reflecting its commitment to financial inclusion in India.
Arohan Financial Services Limited is a non-banking financial company based in Kolkata, India, that specializes in providing a diverse range of financial services primarily to economically active women and small businesses in low-income areas. The company offers microfinance solutions, including small loans for personal and business use, and focuses on facilitating financial inclusion through various products such as loans for shopkeepers, toilet construction, and utility needs. Additionally, Arohan provides supplementary services like group term life insurance and hospi-cash products, along with micro, small, and medium enterprise lending options. Established in 1991, Arohan operates through a network of branches to reach remote locations, thereby enhancing access to financial services for underserved populations. The company is committed to supporting entrepreneurship and development through its loan offerings and financial safety net products.
Janalakshmi Financial Services is a for-profit NBFC serving the urban underserved, with the promoter stake held in the not-for-profit entity Janalakshmi Social Services. This is the only NBFC in India structured in such a manner, with the deliberate intent of keeping the social spirit intact. Janalakshmi Financial Services' market-based approach to financial inclusion is defined by three distinct characteristics: first, an exclusive focus on servicing the needs of the urban poor; second, a strong customer-value driven approach in designing financial products and services; third, the centrality of technology and processes as the foundation of a scalable enterprise.