Investor’s Journey In Gender Lens Investing: Examples From The Field (AVV)
Summary
This case study examines the experiences of Ascend Ventures Vietnam (AVV), a Vietnam-based venture capital firm, in their journey to create a gender-responsive financial ecosystem by utilizing an innovative approach to impact investing. It describes the process and lessons learned from AVV’s gender lens investment strategies, including their strategies for sourcing investments, building relationships with entrepreneurs, and developing new tools to analyze and measure performance.
It also outlines the financial benefits of these investments and discusses how investors can leverage AVV’s experience to improve their processes. The study is valuable for those interested in learning more about gender lens investing or implementing it within their organization.
This case study provides an important example of how gender lens investing can be successful in the Asian context and offers guidance to other investors looking to implement similar strategies. By studying AVV’s experiences, investors can learn lessons to create better outcomes and opportunities for individuals and communities.
This study was originally published on the Value for Women website.
Highlights
- With personal commitments to gender diversity and inclusion, the founders of AVV adopted a gender lens investing approach that complements their principle as returns-first investors.
- AVV’s gender investment strategy: finding and supporting women entrepreneurs, creating a supportive system for women entrepreneurs, fomenting gender diversity in portfolio companies, and promoting women in investment and decision-making roles.
- The partnership with Investing in Women started a new chapter for AVV, supporting AVV on introducing women-inclusive communications strategy, creating team alignment for a gender-responsive investment process, and hosting ‘countering-bias’ trainings.
- Since commencing the partnership, AVV has brought in two investees that are led by women, built an accelerator program for women, supported portfolio companies to increase equity ownership, and collecting sex-disaggregated data on investees.
- AVV’s experience also showcased challenges, from funding position to lack of resources. The case study further points to future opportunities in deploying a new fund, strengthening the business case, increasing gender diversity and inclusion within AVV, and advocating for investments in women startups.
