44 - The Rhodes scholar who is democratizing access to impact investments in Africa

When you consider that the traditional investment industry can be traced as far back as ancient Mesopotamia in 1700 BCE, the field of impact investing is a baby. Indeed the term itself wasn't coined until 2007. Since then the industry has been evolving and growing rapidly.

Yet much of that growth has been occurring among a relatively small group of investors and concentrated heavily in a relatively small number of markets. Even today most of the world's aspiring entrepreneurs do not have access to the capital they need to grow their small businesses. And the ordinary investors who might like to provide that capital are barred from doing so due to investor protection regulations.

Herein lies one of the most significant criticisms of impact investing. Much like the traditional investment world, the impact investment industry is still dominated by a small number of investors and institutions supplying capital to a select group of entrepreneurs.

Enter today's guest, Sarah Burns, Founder, and CEO of Nia Crowdfund. Nia is an online investment platform serving up opportunities to make impact investments in small businesses across Africa. Nia aims to address the missing middle of finance (a problem we’ve discussed at length on this podcast) to provide between $100,000 and $1M of capital to early stages businesses. What further distinguishes Nia Crowdfund is that not only are they supplying this critical early-stage financing but they are focused on allowing ordinary investors to also participate in supplying that capital.

During this episode, Sarah and I discuss her fascinating background of volunteering, researching, and working through the developing world, her doctoral thesis on impact investing as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, and now her work founding Nia Crowdfund to address the missing middle of finance while also democratizing access to impact investing.

Through the conversation, we discuss why the missing middle of finance is a challenge, the importance of democratizing access to impact investing, the well-intended regulations that exclude retail investors from it, and how Nia Crowdfund was designed to address the problems Sarah encountered during her work advising an ultra-high-net-worth impact investor. And be sure to stay tuned to the very end where Sarah and I discuss whether impact measurement is beneficial or harmful to drive real impact.

Resources from this episode:

• Nia website
• Learn about and register to join monthly live impact investment pitch events hosted by Nia.
• Sarah Burns LinkedIn Profile
• Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion
• KIVA Microlending website

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