Changing the way the world tackles poverty
Sector
Acumen Education Fund
Location
India & Pakistan
YEAR of investment
2016-2020
Acumen Education Fund
We have invested in Acumen’s Education Fund (2016-2020), striving to transform affordable education across India and Pakistan. The fund is on track to raise 5 million USD to impact 5 million students by 2020. Focus will be on investments in low cost schools, student support services, education technology, and vocational training. So far Acumen has invested in eight companies including LabourNet (profiled below), EduBridge and Vikalp.
LabourNet is a social enterprise that enables sustainable livelihoods for disadvantaged men, women and youth in urban and rural areas. Their three-pronged engine integrates social and business impact by bridging the gaps in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship.
They focus on formalizing the informal by improving the socioeconomic status of people associated with unorganized value chain. This is achieved through skilling interventions, facilitating wage/self-employment and entrepreneurship by bringing together all the stakeholders: large, small and medium enterprises, corporates, government, individuals and educational institutions.
LabourNet is uniquely poised to create social impact while delivering business value to all stakeholders of the livelihood eco-system. Their solutions are powered by their combined capabilities in employability and entrepreneurship, capacity building, project implementation and impact consulting. Primarily targeted at the corporates, schools, individual and government, their solution stack is backed by their experience and expertise in 28+ sectors and massive scale in over 60+ geographic clusters in 23 states and 5 union territories of India.