In the business of service

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kind of hospital to which a patient is taken. Those who go to free public hospitals do not pay, while those who ask to be taken to the city’s more expensive hospitals, pay accordingly. It uses a mix of grants, equity and loans to enhance its service.

From here begins the list of success stories, which now are encouraging other entrepreneurs to float a venture with a social bent of mind. Viraj Gandhi, known for his pharmacy retail chain, Medicine Shoppe also logged on to the Acumen Fund to support his venture Sehat. The chain of healthcare clinics, set up in the low-income belts of Mumbai, now brings to people medical consultation at a nominal fee. For Swati Bhogle, CEO of Technology Informatics Design Endeavour (TIDE), Bangalore, it is time to look at ways that can give her venture large-scale dissemination. Her society identifies environment-friendly technologies and adapts them so that they are sold by rural entrepreneurs. Assigning herself six months, she is currently finding funding organisations that can support her programme further. “Though not clear what we will take finally, the idea is to go for working capital from banks and venture capital for building infrastructure,” she says.

“With varied instruments available to social entrepreneurs today, this current phase is the best to float a social venture,” says Don Mohanlal, president and CEO, Khemka Foundation. Pointing to Thomas L Friedman’s third edition of The World Is Flat, he says, “one finds a reason in the writer updating his new book with a chapter on social entrepreneurs. With the world recognising their existence and contribution, the fund market too is getting more teeth. Besides veteran like Ashoka and Bellweather becoming more generous, one sees the new — especially those from the corporate world (from Gates and Buffets to Gururaj Deshpande and Vinod Khosla) — coming forward to redefine ways to help social ideas.”

Khosla Ventures has pledged some of its investment proceeds to achieve a social difference. Funding impact maximisers instead of profit maximisers, the fund puts the equity in a non-profit trust. The fund today has interest in microfinance, environment, education, health, affordable housing and others.