Insights from Reviewing 400 Inclusive Business Proposals

When necessity meets ingenuity, magic happens—across Cambodia, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Zambia, local entrepreneurs are turning the world’s toughest challenges into tomorrow’s growth markets. 

The Challenge of Inclusive Business in Emerging Markets 

Across developing economies, promising businesses face a persistent paradox: they have innovative solutions that can potentially solve local development challenges but lack the capital to scale. Traditional investors often perceive these markets as high-risk, creating a funding gap that stifles growth precisely where impact could be greatest. This is where initiatives like Innovations Against Poverty (IAP) play a crucial role—providing catalytic grants and technical support to businesses with proven inclusive models. 

400 Stories of Innovation 

The third round of IAP recently completed its evaluation phase, reviewing an impressive 400 business proposals across four countries. As our evaluation team worked through these applications, distinct patterns emerged that tell a larger story about the evolving landscape of inclusive business. These were more than applications; they were 400 different visions for how business can transform lives in emerging markets. Each proposal represented an entrepreneur’s attempt to balance profit with purpose, scale with impact, and innovation with practicality. 

What Distinguishes Investment-Ready Businesses 

Our evaluation revealed that the most promising businesses—the 57 that made our shortlist—share distinct characteristics that make them attractive for support and promise for future investment: 

• Clear Mutual Benefit: They articulated a compelling case for how their business model creates value for both the company and people living in poverty. 
• Evidence-Based Market Demand: Unlike weaker applications that relied on assumptions, top contenders presented concrete evidence that customers were willing to pay for their services or products.
• Cross-Sector Integration: Many businesses transcended traditional sector boundaries, recognizing that addressing complex challenges requires integrated approaches that tackle interconnected issues simultaneously. 

The Numbers Start to Tell a Story 

The 57 shortlisted applicants collectively requested €9.3 million in funding while proposing €17.2 million of their own resources. This represents an average of €164,000 in requested funding and €302,000 in co-financing per applicant. More striking is the leverage ratio of 64.9%—while still unverified, again if those came to fruition it would mean that for every euro provided by IAP, entrepreneurs would be committing 1.85 euros of their own resources. This ratio speaks to a fundamental shift: businesses are looking to programs like IAP not for handouts, but rather for strategic partnerships that can help refine and scale developing models. Notably, 39 of the 57 shortlisted applicants are at the scaling stage—businesses that have validated their model and are positioned for growth. This concentration of scale-ready enterprises suggests that the inclusive business ecosystem in these countries is maturing, with more companies moving beyond concept stage to demonstrate commercial viability alongside social impact. 

There was a further tendency for companies to work across multiple sectors, reflecting how challenges and opportunities are increasingly interconnected. Businesses clearly recognised that addressing one development challenge often requires tackling several interconnected issues simultaneously. For example, agricultural businesses incorporated climate adaptation strategies, water management, and digital financial services into their business models. This trend toward cross-sector innovation may signal a maturing inclusive business landscape, where entrepreneurs increasingly recognise that the most effective solutions transcend traditional sectoral boundaries. 

The Power of Targeted Support 

Our evaluation process revealed another important insight: businesses that participated in webinars and one-on-one meetings with IAP programme managers consistently produced stronger proposals. This finding highlights how targeted support does more than improve individual applications—it directly enhances businesses’ capacity.  Many inclusive businesses have viable models but fail to secure funding simply because they lack the skills to effectively communicate their value proposition to potential investors. By deliberately filling this ecosystem gap with structured business development support, programs like IAP don’t just improve applications—they enhance the pipeline of investment-ready businesses, creating value that extends beyond the initial investment in support services. 

Looking Forward: From Potential to Impact 

Shortlisting is not the end, but rather the beginning. These businesses now enter due diligence, where our team will work closely with them to refine their business plans and prepare compelling pitches that demonstrate both impact potential and business growth opportunities. This phase represents the crucial bridge between promising ideas and businesses that are ready to accelerate towards investment-readiness. The 400 applications reviewed by IAP tell a larger story about the evolving landscape of business in developing economies. By supporting businesses at a critical stage in their development, IAP and similar initiatives help bridge the underserved missing middle, supporting companies from their early-stage innovation to become investment-ready, scalable enterprise. As these businesses grow, they create ripple effects throughout their communities, generating employment, strengthening supply chains, developing new markets, and delivering essential goods and services to underserved populations.