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When we open opportunity and access to financial services like crop insurance, we change lives. With simple financial tools, we can make sure that farmers can keep providing for their families. Find out how we help them secure their livelihoods.

Smallholder farmers find a secure future

We are living through a time of extreme difficulty — and that’s especially true for the world’s 3 billion people who are left out, or poorly served by, the global financial system. Without tools like savings, credit, or insurance, they are at risk of being left behind as we recover from COVID-19.

We are also living in a time of extraordinary innovation that is changing all our lives. This innovation has the power to solve complex problems at a critical time, and finally bring basic financial tools to those who need them most.

Innovation is chipping away old obstacles that surrounded the world’s poor. Today, no distance is too far, no transaction size is too small, and with data and data analytics, we can understand clients’ needs wherever they may live.

Early-stage fintechs are nimble, flexible, and digitally native — making them uniquely positioned to leverage technology and innovation for the benefit of vulnerable people and small businesses. Here’s how fintech startups in Accion Venture Lab’s portfolio are doing that:
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://terramagna.com.br/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">TerraMagna</a> is using satellite imaging in Brazil to <a href="/how-one-company-uses-tech-to-support-brazilian-farmers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">see small farms who are ignored</a> by large banks. They use those images to assess collateral and figure out what a farmer needs to grow and thrive.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://toffeeinsurance.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Toffee Insurance</a> has successfully <a href="/a-start-up-innovates-to-give-the-uninsured-a-safety-net" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">reached India’s uninsured</a> by offering “bite-sized” policies covering risks that are most relevant to consumers, like unexpected illness, bicycle damage, and theft.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://www.fieldintell.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Field Intelligence</a> uses AI and data analytics to <a href="/how-tech-is-helping-to-meet-health-care-needs-during-the-pandemic" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">help community pharmacies</a> in Nigeria and Kenya optimize their inventories and ensure their customers have the medications they need, when they need them.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://www.self.inc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Self</a> is helping Americans with thin or damaged credit files <a href="/win-from-within-how-fintech-startups-can-grow-by-building-value-for-existing-users#case-study-3.1-self" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">build their credit scores</a> through innovative credit-builder loans.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://www.creditmantri.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">CreditMantri</a> is using alternative data sources to <a href="/a-small-business-owner-gets-a-second-chance" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">help consumers in India</a> who have been invisible to the financial system access credit for the first time. (I recently had the honor of awarding Gowri Mukherjee, CEO of CreditMantri, with <a href="/honoring-two-women-leading-through-crisis-with-the-2020-claugus-award" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the 2020 Edward W. Claugus Award</a> for leadership and innovation in financial inclusion.)</li>
</ul>
<h2>Fintechs are meeting customer needs during the pandemic</h2>
New data confirms how fintechs are answering new needs. In the initial months of the pandemic, consumer demand surged for financial products that build resilience, including savings accounts, personal financial management tools, and payment platforms. Fintechs offering these products saw their compounding monthly growth rate go from 7.4 percent to 15.4 percent from December 2019 to May 2020.

<img class="alignnone wp-image-23052 size-full" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/if50whitepaper.jpg" alt="fintechs offering payment and saving products are more likely to increase CMGR" width="1112" height="699" />

This insight comes from a recent <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/white-paper-2020" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">whitepaper</a> that looks at data submitted by the <a href="https://www.inclusivefintech50.com/2020-cohort">2020 cohort</a> of applicants for Inclusive Fintech 50, an initiative that elevates promising early-stage fintechs driving financial inclusion and resilience around the globe. The initiative provides valuable visibility, resources, and connections that startups need to grow and thrive, especially as they contend with the added problems raised by a global pandemic.
<h2>Fintechs must grow to continue supporting vulnerable people</h2>
Indeed, inclusive fintechs must overcome major challenges to grow, scale, and continue supporting underserved populations. In the midst of a global recession and limited funding, fintechs have had to extend their financial runways while simultaneously finding ways to grow their businesses.

To achieve growth quickly, historically, some fintechs have pursued a “grow at all costs” mentality that prioritizes customer acquisition. But customer acquisition can be costly: bringing on a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one. Fintech startups should consider more sustainable pathways to growth, namely via increased usage, uptake, and earnings among existing clients.

We explore this concept in <a href="/win-from-within-how-fintech-startups-can-grow-by-building-value-for-existing-users" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">our latest publication from Accion Venture Lab</a> that highlights how fintechs are doing just that. And building value for current users is very relevant in the era of COVID-19. Vulnerable people need more and new financial service innovations to rebuild their safety nets and livelihoods as their savings and inventories have been depleted.

I was also very glad to join two partners featured in the report, Jaime de los Angeles, CEO of <a href="https://advance.ph/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Advance</a>, and Tommy Yuwono, co-founder and director of <a href="https://pintek.id/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pintek</a> at the Singaore Fintech Festival in early December. Pintek provides credit to students and schools to improve access to education in Indonesia—and has helped <a href="/schools-go-virtual-with-fintech-support-in-indonesia" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">schools go online during the pandemic</a>. Advance is a salary-on-demand platform that’s been adopted by large companies in the Philippines to provide employees with early access to their wages and <a href="/a-digital-solution-for-people-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-in-the-philippines" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">promote financial wellbeing.</a>

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOwRSMbk8uI

Inclusive fintech startups are offering inspiring examples of how innovation is answering today’s most urgent challenges. As we look toward building an inclusive recovery from COVID-19, we must ensure they have the tools and resources to grow sustainably and answer their clients’ most pressing needs.

Fintech startups are small yet mighty partners in building resilience—but they need to grow to succeed

Nearly two-thirds of the world’s poor depend on agriculture to survive, and many of these families collect money only once a year, stretching their income from one harvest to the next. But climate change is putting their livelihoods in peril — as global surface temperatures increase, so does the risk of drought, the intensity of storms, and the frequency of natural disasters. Furthermore, our global food supply is at risk because it depends in large part on the productivity of smallholder farmers who live and work in emerging markets. In sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, smallholder farmers provide over 80 percent of the food supply.

In sub-Saharan Africa, nearly <a href="https://blogs.imf.org/2020/06/04/safeguarding-africas-food-security-in-the-age-of-covid-19/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">half the population</a> lives below the poverty line and depends on agriculture, herding, and fishing to feed their families and earn an income. Their food supply is extremely vulnerable to climate change and the effects of a food shortage can be devastating — malnutrition surges, school enrollment drops, the economy suffers, and lives are lost.

<img class="alignright wp-image-23023" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/kenya-nakuru-farmers-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="267" />However, when farmers have the ability to adapt to shocks and crises, they can avoid the worst impacts of food shortages. That’s why it’s crucial for farmers to have access to savings accounts, credit, and insurance. For many of us, the idea of saving seems pretty simple: you set money aside in a secure place and earn interest. But, many people around the world lack access to a formal savings account, and <a href="https://www.accion.org/global-challenges" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">less than half</a> of adults saved at all in 2017. Moreover, <a href="https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">235 million</a> unbanked farmers receive agricultural payments in cash, including 115 million women. Since cash is invisible to lenders, it doesn’t generate credit histories and as a result, it prevents families and businesses from borrowing appropriate financing if they need it. In Ethiopia alone, creating a digital agricultural payments system could cut the share of unbanked adults by up to <a href="https://www.accion.org/four-ways-we-can-empower-financially-underserved-people-and-businesses" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">60 percent</a>.
<h2>How agricultural fintechs open opportunities in Africa</h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400">Through our early-stage investment initiative, Accion Venture Lab, we’re supporting innovative agricultural fintech startups. These companies build useful tools that give low-income farmers, who are most vulnerable to extreme weather conditions, the opportunity to afford high-quality seeds and fertilizer, save securely, and adapt when challenges arise. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400">Formal accounts open opportunities for farmers to access a wider array of financial services, including credit and insurance. Insurance and innovative digital products can help smallholder farmers endure climate risks, improve their farming practices, and boost their incomes over time. Accion Venture Lab portfolio company Pula is doing just that in 11 countries across Africa and Asia. So far, they’ve provided over 3.3 million traditionally excluded smallholder farmers with agricultural insurance and data-driven insights and advice to help them increase crop yields in sustainable ways. This has been a game-changer for </span><a href="/for-rose-in-kenya-crop-insurance-is-a-game-changer" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="font-weight: 400">Rose Kilonzo</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, a Kenyan farmer who now has confidence that she can provide for her family no matter the circumstances. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400">“When you plant, you have faith it will be taken care of should your crop fail,” she tells us. With a more secure income, she’s looking forward to expanding into commercial agriculture and passing on the trade to her children and grandchildren.</span>

<img class="alignnone wp-image-14546 size-large" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Kitui_0022-1-1024x684.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="684" />

<span style="font-weight: 400">Another innovative tech-based company we are supporting is </span><a href="/this-agricultural-fintech-empowers-the-farmers-who-feed-the-world" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="font-weight: 400">Apollo Agriculture</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, an agricultural fintech that helps farmers maximize their profits with financing, farming products, optimized advice, and insurance. Their model combines input financing with sophisticated analytics, remote sensing, agronomic machine learning, and mobile money. This approach opens opportunities for the poorest farmers to purchase high-quality farming inputs, such as hybrid seeds and fertilizer, on credit with flexible repayment terms and post-harvest due dates. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400">In addition to financing and distributing agricultural inputs, Apollo Agriculture’s integrated solution includes the necessary training to farm effectively and sustainably. This multifaceted approach ultimately allows farmers to increase their crop yields, leading to greater financial security, better livelihoods, and a reliable food supply for the world.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400">Eventually, Apollo Agriculture plans to leverage its technology to support farmers with personalized solutions based on their specific geographical, weather, and land characteristics. In the long term, these customized farming techniques will improve soil quality and curb erosion, which helps boost productivity and sustainability.</span>
<h2>A tech-based approached to farmer credit in Latin America</h2>
<span style="font-weight: 400">In Latin America, we’re investing in </span><a href="/how-one-company-uses-tech-to-support-brazilian-farmers" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><span style="font-weight: 400">TerraMagna</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400">, a Brazilian company that uses their proprietary machine learning platform and monitoring technology to generate a more personalized farmer credit score and an accurate estimate of collateral value. Because family-run farms in Brazil lack access to traditional financial institutions, they often seek credit from retailers where they purchase seeds, fertilizer, and other inputs. TerraMagna partners with these local retailers and uses their tech-based approach to reduce the manual cost of the underwriting process and assess the collateral value with more precision, which lowers the retailers’ credit risk and enables them to provide lower-cost loans.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400">Lenders in Brazil have typically used land as collateral and have found it difficult to properly accept crops as collateral, given the high fraud risk. Using satellite images, TerraMagna can track the crop status in real-time and help prevent fraud attempts. This approach aligns with our thesis that technology and innovative lending models can work together to create new asset collateral, ultimately granting better access and better credit pricing to family farmers.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400">We will continue to support smallholder farmers, open opportunities for young people to get into the farming business, and remove the barriers to profitable and sustainable farming for the most vulnerable. As the world’s population grows, so too will our portfolio of partners offering innovative financial and business development services that enable farmers to prosper in a changing climate.</span>

Opening opportunities for smallholder farmers in a changing climate

Our global food supply depends on the productivity of farmers all around the world, especially the smallholder farmers who live and work in emerging markets. But the coronavirus pandemic has presented new challenges for already-vulnerable farmers and disrupted global supply chains. This crisis poses a great threat to food security for much of the world’s population.

Even before COVID-19, the 300 million smallholder farmers around the world faced a funding gap of over $167 billion. Particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, which is home to over 50 million smallholder farmers, closing this gap would significantly boost efforts to fight poverty and hunger. Our partner <a href="http://apolloagriculture.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Apollo Agriculture</a> is addressing this need with an innovative, tech-based business model that helps farmers maximize their profits with a bundle of financing, farming products, optimized advice, and insurance. Accion Venture Lab is happy to extend our support of Apollo as they continue to empower farmers in East Africa with the tools they need to build financial stability, maximize their profits, and produce food for their communities, which is even more important amid the pandemic crisis.
<h2>Why we invested in Apollo Agriculture</h2>
Around the globe, smallholder farmers are the backbone of societies as they grow and harvest essential crops that feed nearly 2 billion people, mostly people living in emerging markets. Unfortunately, these farmers face tremendous hardships from climate-related challenges, trade volatility, financial limitations, and now, a global pandemic. Most smallholder farmers do not have access to credit and or the technical expertise needed to optimize their harvests. Their crop yields are also hindered by a lack of access to quality inputs, like seeds and fertilizers, and a need for appropriate agronomic advice.

<img class="wp-image-21198 alignleft" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/apollo2.jpg" alt="" width="446" height="298" />In 2016, we supported Apollo Agriculture in their pre-seed round to help address the impediments smallholder farmers face, and we are excited to have the opportunity to support them again in a follow-on investment in their Series A. At its core, Apollo Agriculture is a tech-enabled financing solution for smallholder farmers in East Africa that allows them to <a href="https://www.accion.org/seeds-fertilizer-mobile-money-kenyan-farmers-get-the-supplies-they-need" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">acquire the agricultural inputs they need</a>. Their model combines input financing with sophisticated analytics, remote sensing, agronomic machine learning, and mobile money. Farmers can purchase high-quality farming inputs, such as hybrid seeds and fertilizer, on credit with flexible repayment terms and post-harvest due dates. The offering also includes customer-centric, voice-based trainings developed by the Apollo team to help farmers learn best practices for tasks like planting and combating pests and to develop financial literacy.

Accion Venture Lab is excited to continue supporting Apollo Agriculture as they grow and scale their business. We are most excited by Apollo’s:
<h4><strong>Ability to address a core financing need for a large, underserved segment</strong></h4>
Apollo Agriculture addresses one of the fundamental challenges of improving farmer livelihoods in Africa by financing the comprehensive toolkit of inputs, agronomic training, and planting tools that underserved smallholder farmers need to increase crop yields. Apollo is working with smallholder farmers in Africa who are growing vital staple crops, such as maize, tomatoes, sorghum, potatoes, and beans. The farmers in this segment cover a range of economic levels, including those who are truly the poorest of the poor to those who own small, commercial farms. Apollo’s model is flexible enough to work with all socioeconomic levels of smallholder farmers.
<h4><strong>Innovative business model</strong></h4>
At the time of our seed investment, we felt that Apollo was <a href="https://www.accion.org/fintech-startup-revolutionizing-kenyan-agriculture" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">the most innovative company in agricultural finance</a> and were excited to support a financing model focused on smallholder farmers. Nearly three years later, Apollo continues to focus on innovation by using cutting-edge tools like satellite imagery and remote sensing — technology used in developed markets for decades — to benefit smallholder farmers in Africa. Rather than inventing a new and unproven solution, Apollo is leveraging existing technology to provide a tried and tested set of solutions.

Since the pandemic began, Apollo has seen an increased need for its products, even while business conditions rapidly became more challenging due to significant mobility restrictions, a curfew, and a rapid transition to remote work. Their tech-enabled business model has allowed them to continue providing customers with high-quality farm products and financing throughout the pandemic. We believe that Apollo’s model could be the key to unlocking significant improvements in the livelihoods of farmers around the world, a critical need as the world grapples with a potential food crisis caused by the turmoil of the COVID-19 pandemic.
<h4><strong>Strong value proposition</strong></h4>
Beyond simply distributing agricultural inputs, Apollo’s integrated solution combines the financing and <a href="https://www.accion.org/learning-new-skills-helped-this-longtime-farmer-thrive" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">training that are necessary for farmers to use them effectively</a>. This approach allows farmers to increase their crop yields, leading to greater financial security, better livelihoods for farmers and their families, and a reliable food supply for the world. Farmers can select high-quality inputs purchased on credit, allowing them to reserve their money for other needs. Eventually, Apollo’s vision is to leverage its technology to provide customized inputs to farmers based on their specific geographical, weather, and land characteristics. These personalized farming techniques will also help to limit erosion and improve soil quality, further boosting productivity and sustainability.
<h4><strong>Ability to de-risk credit access to smallholder farmers</strong></h4>
Apollo will continue to serve a huge population of unbanked farmers who, prior to using their model, were too high-risk or inaccessible to receive the capital and resources they need to succeed. The team has proven that smallholder farmers, with the right tools and knowledge, can afford to pay back loans and continue to use their services. Apollo continues to have a high loan payback and customer repeat rate. Apollo’s offering has been strong enough to encourage farmers to re-engage even after experiencing disappointing crop prices or environmental challenges the previous season, and even during this unprecedented pandemic. As farmers are facing immense difficulties during the coronavirus pandemic, the ability to access capital will be critical for them to recover financially while continuing to produce the food that so many depend on.

It has been a great journey to see Apollo Agriculture grow, and we believe that this series A will propel them to empower so many more smallholder farmers — not only in Kenya, but across Africa. As Apollo continues to grow and scale, they can provide the critical financing farmers need to achieve their greatest potential and continue feeding the world.

This agricultural fintech empowers the farmers who feed the world

Since the launch of <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-we-work/invest/accion-venture-lab">Accion Venture Lab</a>, we always knew <a href="https://www.accion.org/regions/latin-america-caribbean">Latin America</a> was a critical region in our quest to find the most promising companies that can shape a new reality for the underserved. We were early investors in the leading small business lender <a href="https://www.accion.org/konfio-innovates-in-digital-lending-for-mexican-msmes">Konfio</a>, inventory financing provider<a href="https://www.accion.org/five-small-business-owners-in-mexico-city-share-their-stories"> Tienda Pago</a>, payment solutions provider <a href="https://www.accion.org/accion-venture-lab-marks-second-successful-exit-driving-social-and-financial-impact-from-investment-in-clip">Clip</a>, and alternative scoring platform <a href="https://www.accion.org/fintech-founders-have-a-formula-for-building-financial-health">Destacame</a>, and we continue to look for new and disruptive companies. Last year we raised Venture Lab’s first third-party fund, adding a total of $33M to our assets under management to follow our mandate of being the first institutional investor in groundbreaking early-stage fintech for inclusion companies.

The vast market opportunity and the exceptional entrepreneurs in the region have caught the eye of both local and global investors, pushing <a href="https://news.crunchbase.com/news/as-billions-flow-into-latin-america-its-startup-scene-scales/">venture capital activity to record levels</a> — especially in fintech. As one of the most active seed-stage funds in Latin America, we often partner with prominent local players to co-invest in high profile fintech startups.
<h3><b>Looking for opportunities with an entrepreneur’s eye</b></h3>
As the new Investment Officer for Latin America, I lead deal activity and support our portfolio companies in the region. Before joining the team, I was an investment banker at Lazard’s Buenos Aires office and later left to become an entrepreneur. For the past four years, I was the co-founder of a digital lender for micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that used technology to improve underwriting and access to financing for underserved companies in Argentina. As a former entrepreneur, I try to put myself in the shoes of the founders when I am looking at a new investment opportunity or helping our investees with strategic decisions.
<h3><b>Top inclusive fintech trends in the region</b></h3>
Brazil and Mexico have consolidated as the leading entrepreneurial ecosystems in the region and will continue to attract the largest volume of venture capital in Latin America. These, together with the maturing fintech landscape in Colombia, are the markets where we will push harder to grow our portfolio. Although we might also invest in other countries, one thing is clear: we will only engage with companies that are offering truly responsible financial products.

A new generation of startups is rising to join the fintechs already disrupting traditional finance — and they’re all about meeting customer needs more completely. Today, it is not enough to provide services faster than the incumbents, have a better user experience, or acquire clients at a lower cost. We are continuously looking for companies that align with our mission of helping the underserved — those that build great products that don’t sacrifice quality and pricing for speed. As global investors, we follow these criteria in our work around the world, but there are some particular trends we are interested in for Latin America.
<ol>
 	<li><i><b>Holistic approach to MSMEs. </b></i>Serving companies has always presented a more significant challenge than working with consumers. The existence of more than one owner, opaque financial statements, relationships with clients and suppliers, and an overall greater number of variables to analyze, create higher entry barriers and makes it more difficult to work with small businesses effectively. The first generation of fintechs brought some of these barriers down by solving a specific need with technology. Today, with growing competition both from fintechs and traditional players, being a single-product company is not enough. Startups need to offer a complete suite of financial services to be efficient and competitive. We want to help companies that deeply understand the needs of Latin American MSMEs and are building the banks of the future for them — like <a href="https://konfio.mx/">Konfio</a>, which started with unsecured loans and now also offers a credit card, financial education, and insurance products, or <a href="https://www.cora.com.br/">Cora</a>, which is launching a neobank for small and medium businesses in Brazil.</li>
 	<li><b><i>Fairly priced consumer lending. </i></b>The days of high-yield, direct “free credit” are coming to an end as low-entry barriers are increasing competition and pushing default rates and acquisition costs to unsustainable levels. Therefore, business models where the interest rate is the only variable used to control profitability are no longer sustainable. <span style="font-weight: 400;">They put too much pressure on their customers and are already </span><a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-12/tech-startups-are-flooding-kenya-with-apps-offering-high-interest-loans"><span style="font-weight: 400;">in the public eye for causing more damage than helping them</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span>We are excited about new, more sophisticated schemes that can offer better pricing for low-income populations by providing a broad product offering that subsidizes loans, or by using new assets as collateral to improve underwriting and lower default rates. Companies like <a href="https://www.grupor5.com/">R5 </a>and <a href="https://www.facio.com.br/">Facio</a> are now providing affordable loans to consumers against their assets or future earnings.</li>
 	<li><i><b>Platform fintechs. </b></i>Big tech companies such as Google or Facebook, and newer, more local platforms like Colombia’s Rappi are playing an increasingly central role in the financial lives of consumers. With millions of users, these <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/vikasraj/2019/11/20/platform-fintechs-are-cominghow-should-startups-respond/#15e092af2b0f">companies initially added fintech services</a> to satisfy user needs, but now they’re expanding outside the frontiers of their core business. We want to support companies like <a href="https://zolvers.com/">Zolvers</a> that start as a platform with a clear path to adding financial services or fintechs like <a href="https://www.accion.org/why-we-invested-in-smartmei-in-brazil">SmartMei</a> that leverage the data and users of larger platforms to better distribute their products.</li>
 	<li><b><i>Sophisticated and consumer-centric insurance products. </i></b>There is still a lot of room to grow in insurtech in Latin America. In a market with no clear winners yet, we are glad to see startups working closely with large insurance companies to develop and distribute unique products. Whether specializing in insurance for cell phones, cars, or health care, we are looking for companies, like <a href="https://www.pier.digital/">Pier </a>in Brazil, that don’t just act as a broker or a comparison site but are changing the way insurance products are built, priced, and sold.</li>
 	<li><i><b>Agri-Fintech solutions. </b></i>In a region where agriculture is a significant economic force, <a href="http://www.fao.org/3/CA4076EN/CA4076EN_Chapter2_Latin_American_Agriculture.pdf">driving almost 5 percent of the GDP across these countries</a>, we’re excited to see fintech startups like <a href="https://www.siembro.com/">Siembro</a>, which uses sector-specific data to improve underwriting models and partners with players across the supply chain to provide financial services to the small farmers. We have success stories in our portfolio with companies in other parts of the world, like <a href="https://www.accion.org/for-rose-in-kenya-crop-insurance-is-a-game-changer">Pula</a> and <a href="https://www.accion.org/seeds-fertilizer-mobile-money-kenyan-farmers-get-the-supplies-they-need">Apollo Agriculture</a>, and we are eager to replicate their success with new companies in Latin America.</li>
</ol>
<h3><b>The impact investment scene keeps growing</b></h3>
Financial inclusion is rooted deeply in many Latin American fintech startups who, from the beginning, design their products to address a large underserved or underbanked population. However, there is a growing number of companies that go the extra mile and commit to having a positive impact in society, not only by bringing an excluded population into the financial sector but by doing so in a responsible way.

By offering better pricing, lowering default rates, or by becoming more efficient as they broaden their product offering, companies are favoring their customers and creating a more sustainable business for themselves. It is not a coincidence that that innovation-focused events are taking place in this vibrant regions for venture capital: <a href="https://www.finnovista.com/finnosummit/">Finnosummit</a> consistently brings together top fintech and insurtech entrepreneurs to meet with financial entities and international investors, and <a href="https://www.inversiondeimpacto.org/">FLII</a>, which also covers other impact areas such as energy and education, is celebrating its tenth annual edition this year. As I step into my new role at Venture Lab, I’m excited to help drive transformation in this dynamic market and accompany startups as they grow to become a new and more responsible generation of leading fintechs.

2020 and beyond: What’s next for fintech innovation in Latin America

When you grow up in a community, you understand it on a deeper level. You get to know the families next door, the businesses that work nearby, and the habits that characterize daily life.

For the last five decades, Accion has worked with over 110 partners in 50 countries, and in every instance, we’ve relied on our partners’ deep local knowledge of the needs, desires, and habits of their neighbors and clients. We may know something about global trends and innovations, but it takes a partner on the ground to help us tailor those products and services to meet the needs and solve the real challenges of our clients.

Increasingly, businesses are exploring how diverse perspectives and local insights like these drive innovation. In the introduction to <a href="https://www.mastercardservices.com/en/expert-insights/ceos-innovation-playbook"><em>The CEO’s Innovation Playbook</em></a>, a report from Mastercard and Harvard Business Review Analytic Services that guides leaders to spark change, Ajay Banga writes that when an organization brings diverse insights and experiences together, it “end[s] up with a collective perspective that is both broader and deeper than any one perspective could be on its own.”

That’s why we work alongside leaders like these: they’ve grown up in the communities that they serve, know what problems must be addressed, and understand the differences that inclusive financial services can make.
<h3><strong>Using AI, remote sensing, and automation to protect smallholder farmers </strong></h3>
After growing up on a farm in Kenya, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/03/business/microinsurance-africa-thomas-njeru.html">Thomas Njeru </a>understood why so many of the world’s farmers are just one drought or disease away from devastation. "I remember during a drought year, some of my friends dropping out of school — they could not come to school hungry, and their parents could not pay the school fees. The majority of families in Africa are faced with the same precarious reality.” That motivated him to create <a href="https://www.accion.org/for-rose-in-kenya-crop-insurance-is-a-game-changer">Pula</a> with co-founder Rose Goslinga, which uses technology to provide smallholder farmers agricultural insurance and uses satellite data to help its clients gain higher crop yields. By combining artificial intelligence, mobile registration, remote sensing, and automated tools, Pula’s annual insurance premium costs farmers about $3 to $5 and helps them protect their crops and their livelihood.
<h3><strong>Tapping into an Indian tradition to support small businesses</strong></h3>
Growing up, Neeraj Bansal watched his entrepreneur father <a href="https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/honey-no-money-dont-worry-credright-hain-na/articleshow/68118970.cms">struggle</a> to obtain capital and sustain his businesses. He also saw how India’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&amp;v=hxvDtklQL8I">chit funds</a> — traditional lending groups similar to ROSCAs — used social trust and local knowledge to provide credit to entrepreneurs when banks wouldn’t. Today, India is home to roughly 5 million chit funds, some of which have been operating for years. They represent a wealth of high-quality user data that banks had overlooked. Neeraj co-founded <a href="https://www.accion.org/fintech-transforming-indias-chit-fund-industry-inclusive-finance">CredRight</a> to tap that information to help India’s micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) get the funding they need. By partnering with chit fund representatives and accessing member data, CredRight evaluates borrowers’ creditworthiness to provide MSMEs with inclusive finance quickly and inexpensively.
<h3><strong> </strong><strong>Helping people in informal settlements through insurtech </strong></h3>
In South Africa, approximately <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Housing/InformalSettlements/SERI.pdf">1 in 7 families lived in informal settlements</a> in 2016. In those communities, fire safety is a significant concern: between 2015 and 2016, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2016/08/23/africa/lumkani-fire-detector-south-africa-2/index.html">fires</a> killed 32 people and damaged nearly 4,000 homes. After working on a solution to this issue while at Cape Town University, Francois Petousis, David Gluckman, and Paul Mesarcik co-founded <a href="https://www.accion.org/fire-insurance-provides-peace-of-mind-in-south-africa">Lumkani</a> to keep more South Africans safe. Lumkani provides residents in South Africa’s informal settlements with fire insurance and an internet-connected heat sensor that notifies all users if a fire is detected nearby. Eighteen months after launching, Lumkani demonstrated that, in 73 percent of cases, its technology helped <a href="https://www.accion.org/lumkani-uses-fire-insurance-to-protect-families-in-south-africa">prevent fires from spreading</a> beyond the first home.
<h3><strong>Keeping corner stores stocked in Mexico and Peru</strong></h3>
Neighborhood stores, or tiendas, are fixtures throughout Latin America. They’re essential for the people who live nearby as well as their local economies. But many of these mom-and-pop shops can’t get the financing they need to restock their shelves with snacks, drinks, and other goods when they need them. Dan Cohen helped create a company that solves this problem for storeowners and the vendors they work with: <a href="https://www.accion.org/five-small-business-owners-in-mexico-city-share-their-stories">Tienda Pago</a> provides entrepreneurs across Mexico and Peru with short-term working capital loans to purchase high-demand items. The company uses <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-banks-fintechs-and-corporations-can-expand-supply-chain-finance">supply chain data</a> to finance inventory payments, paying fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) distributors directly; the distributors then deliver those supplies to the storeowners, who repay Tienda Pago via an electronic mobile payment platform.
<h3><strong>Local needs and global goals</strong></h3>
By living and working with their clients, these innovators developed new solutions that address specific needs from the ground up.

We should cultivate and support local innovation wherever we can: <a href="https://bankinnovation.net/allposts/biz-lines/payments/amazon-pay-launches-bill-inquiry-feature-via-alexa-devices/">Amazon</a>, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/news/report-ant-financial-and-tencent-are-rapidly-growing-their-financial-services-ecosystems-heres-exactly-what-they-offer-and-where-we-think-theyll-go-next/articleshow/71696739.cms">Ant Financial</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/technology/facebook-cryptocurrency-libra.html">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/30/sea-online-financial-services-to-generate-38-billion-revenue-by-2025.html">GOJEK and Grab</a>, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/10/28/uber-announces-deeper-push-into-financial-services-with-uber-money.html">Uber</a>, and many others are developing global super platforms that can immediately reach billions of people who have been left out of the formal financial sector. But to make the most of their platforms, these players should listen to and work with people already driving innovation in communities across the globe. These innovators know what it means to understand and address the fundamental, immediate human needs of the world’s underserved communities, including education, food security, home safety, and expanded economic opportunity.

When fintech innovation meets these needs, it makes an immediate impact on people's lives, but it also has long-term effects for families and communities. From ending hunger to achieving gender equality to promoting economic growth, <a href="https://www.uncdf.org/financial-inclusion-and-the-sdgs">financial inclusion is an enabler in more than half of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals</a>.

That’s why supporting local innovation matters — because by understanding the unique needs of people in each market and creating solutions that fit their lives, we can finally build a safer, more equitable world for everyone.

Even in a world of global super platforms, local innovation still matters

On Thursday, families across the United States will sit down together for Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday, and not just for the food. It’s a special moment that allows us to reflect on the things we’re grateful for and express our gratitude.

One of the things I’m most grateful for is the people, institutions, and partnerships that supported Accion over the last year. The work that we do alongside our partners allows us to help farmers improve their resilience, help parents pay for their children’s education, and build a world with more opportunities for everyone. From providing better crop yields to promoting economic growth to helping women gain autonomy, <a href="https://www.uncdf.org/financial-inclusion-and-the-sdgs">financial inclusion enables the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals</a> and creates a safer, more equitable world.

With your support, Accion has continued to work toward making full financial inclusion a reality. Together, we welcomed new leaders, created new partnerships and continued demonstrating how inclusive financial services can catalyze progress. In 2019, we:
<ul>
 	<li>Worked with Apollo Agriculture to <a href="https://www.accion.org/learning-new-skills-helped-this-longtime-farmer-thrive">teach smallholder farmers across Kenya</a> the best ways to use new fertilizers, plant their seeds, and use financing to grow larger crops.</li>
 	<li>Expanded <a href="https://www.accion.org/fintech-for-inclusion-why-accion-is-betting-big-on-startups">Accion Venture Lab’s work</a> harnessing <a href="https://www.accion.org/six-vital-trends-changing-the-future-of-fintech">emerging fintech innovations</a> to help people manage their daily lives, navigate unseen challenges, and capitalize on new opportunities.</li>
 	<li>Helped <a href="https://www.accion.org/these-women-are-growing-their-businesses-and-their-confidence">female entrepreneurs across Colombia grow their businesses and confidence</a> through a new interactive digital platform that teaches core business skills and promotes better financial habits.</li>
 	<li>Welcomed the Center for Financial Inclusion’s new Managing Director, <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/q-a-with-mayada-el-zoghbi-cfis-new-managing-director">Mayada El-Zoghbi</a>. Mayada has been at the forefront of inclusive finance; she’s the right person to begin CFI’s next chapter protecting customers and researching the big, unanswered questions that we must answer to create a financially inclusive world.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://www.accion.org/the-faces-behind-mexico-citys-mercados-publicos">Connected Mexico City’s mercados públicos with the consumers that rely on them</a> through CÍVICO, a digital platform that helps Latin America’s entrepreneurs modernize their businesses and access financial services for the first time.</li>
</ul>
Those are just a few of the many highlights from a remarkable year: your support helped countless people and businesses around the world and will allow us to continue this important work. To everyone who gave or partnered with us in any way, thank you.

What you do for Accion means so much to so many: with 3 billion people still left out of the global financial sector, we have work to do. We’ll continue relying on you to help us create a world where everyone can meet their day-to-day needs, save for the future, and help their children learn and grow.

Thank you again, and happy holidays.

What I'm grateful for

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Rose Kilonzo comes from a long line of farmers in Kitui County, Kenya. “I love it because when you farm, you won’t go hungry,” says Rose. She has always valued being able to provide for her family through the crops she grows, both by putting food on the table and by selling the surplus to earn money for school fees and clothes for her five kids. Plus, she enjoys the autonomy of being her own boss. But Rose knows that a good harvest is never a certainty. She compares farming to playing a game of cards — the outcome is never guaranteed. A season of scarce rains can destroy her fields and leave Rose and her family with no food or source of income. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">When Rose heard about Accion Venture Lab portfolio company </span><a href="https://www.pula-advisors.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pula</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, she was excited to learn more about how their innovative insurance and agriculture advisory services could benefit her. Pula provides agricultural insurance for traditionally excluded small-holder farmers by leveraging cutting-edge technology and an extensive network of partners, including the </span><a href="https://www1.wfp.org/r4-rural-resilience-initiative"><span style="font-weight: 400;">World Food Program’s R4 Rural Resilience Initiative</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. In addition to insurance, Pula provides data-driven insights and advice to help farmers like Rose gain higher yields on their crops in sustainable ways. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Rose now has confidence that she can provide for her family no matter the circumstances. “When you plant, you have faith it will be taken care of should your crop fail,” she says. Rose has become an advocate of insurance for farming and shares her experience with other local farmers. With a more secure income, she’s looking forward to expanding into commercial agriculture and teaching her children and grandchildren the trade. </span>

For Rose in Kenya, crop insurance is a game-changer

<span style="font-weight: 400;">“Change is the only permanent thing. We see a lot happening, like climate change, and for us to solve the issues of the smallholder farmers — we can’t use the normal way to solve issues,” says Jacobeth Barno, who works for Accion Venture Lab portfolio company Pula. In Kenya, where Jacobeth works, the past decade of change has led to a booming digital economy with </span><a href="https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">91 percent of the population</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> using mobile money. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">But smallholder farmers haven’t always gotten to enjoy the fruits of the digital revolution, particularly when it comes to insurance. “Insurance has not been available to them,” says Jacobeth. “The reason is not that insurance companies don’t like them, but because the approach does not suit the smallholder farmers — it’s too expensive for them. I realized there is an opportunity to be able to reach these people with innovations to help improve their years and change their lives.”</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Fintech innovation is crucial for Pula as it seeks to serve rural communities. “Technology has helped us reach most people. Through technology, we have been able to advise farmers on methods to use that can improve production and their farming. We use our phones for farmers to pay with and to do research,” says Pula employee Cleopas Busienei. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">But technology is only part of the story for Pula’s business model. Team members regularly visit communities to talk and share advice with smallholder farmers. Data-driven insights inform farmers about when and how to plant their crops to produce higher yields. Jacobeth sums up the company’s vision with, “I see a great future for Pula because we put out clients first and deliver on what we promise. We always come up with solutions. I want to see Pula help those who are in a struggle to scale up due to low-income, and I want us to help them.” </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">With 1.5 billion smallholder farmers worldwide, who are largely uninsured, Pula has a massive opportunity to help people.  With its formula of mixing cutting-edge insurtech products with a personal connection with clients, Pula is making strides in empowering a vital, yet underserved, segment of the population with knowledge and confidence. </span>

Driving resilience for farmers through tech and human interaction

<span style="font-weight: 400;">When asked how he feels about farming, Festus replies, “I enjoy it so much — I love it.” Farming allows Festus to be his own boss and is more stable than other forms of work. With his harvests, Festus puts food on the table, pays his children’s school fees, and incrementally improves his family’s standard of living. But, as all farmers know, a bountiful harvest is never a given. “When drought came, I would lack food and wait for the rain, farm again, and wait to get food.” Trapped in this cycle, and with no recourse from a failed harvest, Festus could never plan for the future.</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">
</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Until recently, smallholder farmers have not had access to farming technologies that mitigate the risk of drought, pests, and floods. These farmers are at a higher risk of a bad harvest which can have wide-ranging consequences for their finances. When Festus learned about Accion Venture Lab portfolio company </span><a href="https://www.pula-advisors.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pula</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, he saw an opportunity to boost his resilience and security. Pula offers more than crop insurance. Farmers like Festus benefit from interactive training on farming methods and tech-enabled insights accessible through farmers’ mobile phones. </span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;"><img class="size-large wp-image-18867 aligncenter" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Kitui_0012-1024x684.jpg" alt="Festus harvesting his crops" width="1024" height="684" />Festus has seen the benefits of working with Pula and regularly encourages other farmers to join. “I hope that Pula continues in the future and that we can continue to improve our future through its benefits,” he says. Knowing that his crop insurance provides protection from a bad harvest, Festus can take care of his family and his hopes and plans for the future can stretch beyond the next harvest. </span>

Insurance emboldens Festus to be his own boss

Michael Schlein

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India is a global leader in financial inclusion. For over a decade, Accion has worked with and learned from India’s innovators, investors, and policymakers to expand economic opportunity for its people and businesses.

The majority of Kenyans have mobile money accounts; their activity demonstrates digital financial services’ potential. Accion helps Kenyan innovators harness emerging technologies to create new financial services.

Most of Mexico’s people lack access to a formal bank account. Accion has worked in Mexico for decades to create a thriving and competitive financial sector that embraces innovation and protects its clients.

South Africa is a global hub for fintech innovation. Accion supports and advises South African innovators using technology to help entrepreneurs expand their businesses and families protect their homes around the world.

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Anastasia Ngala has to make sure her crops can thrive with only two rains per year. “We have long rain and short rain. We plant for the short rains this November. I am happy when it rains because I sell my farm products and earn my income.” Missing one of these rains can mean ruin for Anastasia’s harvest and financial hardship for her family of nine. But farming is Anastasia’s way of life and her only source of income. When she learned about Accion Venture Lab portfolio company </span><a href="https://www.pula-advisors.com/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pula</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, she recognized the opportunity to further develop her agricultural skills while insulating herself from bad harvests.  </span>

[caption id="attachment_18776" align="alignleft" width="500"]<img class=" wp-image-18776" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Kitui_0051-1024x684.jpg" alt="Pula employee Jacobeth Barno" width="500" height="334" /> <em>Pula employee Jacobeth Barno</em>[/caption]

<span style="font-weight: 400;">Pula, a cutting-edge insurtech startup, focuses on providing crop insurance to traditionally underserved smallholder farmers. “It’s important to solve that sector because as soon as we support the smallholder farmer, we will directly be changing a lot of things in the dynamics of the economy,” says Pula employee Jacobeth Barno. As a Pula customer, Anastasia can access data-driven farming insights that boost her crop yields while also having the peace of mind that she will be compensated if the harvest fails. “When I planted without Pula, I took a risk that it was okay if I harvested or lacked yields. I was 50-50. But now, I am 99 percent assured by Pula,” she says.</span>

<span style="font-weight: 400;">The benefits of Anastasia’s relationship with Pula have been tangible. With the confidence of her Pula coverage, she has grown her farm from three to five acres and has encouraged her children to work with Pula. Anastasia has also become a vocal Pula advocate outside of her home. She urges her friends and neighbors to look into the benefits, “Some of my neighbors want to join the insurance because they have known about compensation and also want to get compensated.” Now, Anastasia has confidence that she can provide for her family and grow her farming capabilities to new levels.</span>

&nbsp;

<img class="size-large wp-image-18779 alignnone" src="https://content.accion.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Kitui_0037-1024x684.jpg" alt="Pula client Anastasia" width="1024" height="684" />

After seeing the benefits of crop insurance, Anastasia’s an advocate

According to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/04/female-founders-have-brought-in-just-2-2-of-us-vc-this-year-yes-again/">TechCrunch</a>, fewer than 1 in 10 people making investment decisions at venture capital firms are women, and three-quarters of these firms have zero female investors. Furthermore, there were only 24 companies with female chief executives <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/23/upshot/why-the-number-of-female-chief-executives-is-falling.html">among the Fortune 500 in 2018</a>. There’s a long way to go before we reach gender parity in most industries and societies throughout the world, but it’s crucial that we continue to champion women because, as the slogan for International Women’s Day 2019 points out, balance is better.

Having diverse leadership helps companies increase their understanding of their customers, so they can perform better financially. For businesses focused on social good, this can also translate to making a greater impact. When it comes to financial inclusion, we need women in power as we work to overcome the <a href="https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/">persistent gender gap</a> in access to financial services and ensure that all women have useful financial tools that can help them gain independence and seize more opportunities.

As we strive to close this gap and build an inclusive financial system, we’re proud to have a diverse team leading the charge. Three in five people who work at Accion are women, and at Accion Venture Lab, more than half of all full-time staff are women.

We’re highlighting some of these leaders who are working to build a more inclusive world in our <a href="https://www.accion.org/series/women-of-accion">annual International Women’s Day blog series on the women of Accion and our partners</a>. Check out <a href="https://www.accion.org/these-women-leaders-show-that-balance-is-better-part-two/">this additional article</a> to learn about more inspiring women.

Here are a few of the leaders we’re proud to work with:

These women leaders show that balance is better, part one

For people who struggle to get by, a financial shock is devastating. Without resources to recover, low-income consumers in emerging markets can have the course of their lives altered by one unfortunate event. Insurance can make a drastic difference for these populations. But serving these customers poses significant challenges for insurance companies — from cost-effectively reaching and educating consumers to accurately assessing and pricing risks to efficiently managing claims. <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-can-we-bring-insurance-to-those-who-need-it-most">Startups can play a critical role in solving those challenges</a> with products intended to address specific risks for underserved communities, new distribution channels to reach these populations, and new streams of data to more effectively assess and price risk.

Accion Venture Lab has been excited to make its first three investments in the insurtech space this year with investments in <a href="https://www.pula-advisors.com/">Pula Advisors</a>, operating across Africa, <a href="https://lumkani.com/">Lumkani</a> in South Africa, and <a href="https://toffeeinsurance.com/">Toffee Insurance</a> in India. These startups are doing exciting things across geographies and products — covering personal accident, health, property, life, and agriculture insurance.

Based on our recent investments and our ongoing exploration of new insurtech businesses around the world, we have identified four areas of inclusive insurance innovation that we’re particularly excited about.
<ol>
 	<li><strong>A tangible “hook” to attract customers: </strong>For the vast majority of low-income customers, insurance remains an intangible product with intangible benefits. Unlike credit, insurers ask customers to pay upfront for a product only to see the benefits days, months or years later — if ever. We’re seeing insurtech models now that, rather than relying on this traditional approach, are offering a solid hook to attract customers and provide immediate benefits in addition to the longer-term value of insurance. For example, <a href="https://www.accion.org/insurtech-fire-protection-south-africa">Lumkani provides South Africans living in informal settlements</a> with a unique bundle: insurance that protects against loss of life, shelter, and assets in the case of a fire, and an Internet of Things (IoT) heat detector that detects fires in and around homes. In addition to providing early warning, the heat detector, often proudly displayed in a home, reminds customers every day that their purchases are keeping their families safe and protected.</li>
 	<li><strong>Distribution models that build trust and that scale:</strong> In addition to defining a strong hook or value proposition to customers, traditional insurance models often struggle with reaching customers, educating them about the product’s benefits, and providing confidence in the overall experience. Selling insurance door-to-door is too costly for many microinsurance policies. We have seen insurtech businesses leverage existing distribution channels to piggyback on the trust of existing customer relationships. For example, Toffee in India works with retail channel partners to sell products that have a natural overlap with their insurance policies, such as commuters insurance paired with bicycle retailers. By ensuring sales channels are part of their target customers’ everyday lives, such as pharmacies where they plan to sell insurance, Toffee makes its offering accessible to a relevant customer base.</li>
 	<li><strong>Unique and compelling product design features: </strong>Another challenge traditional insurers face is designing relevant products for the underserved. Insurance products created for middle- or higher-income customers are not always relevant for the realities of a low-income customer who faces different circumstances and different risks from day to day. Insurtech companies can successfully understand what their customers need and reimagine how the product could be made relevant to their lives. For example, <a href="https://www.accion.org/changing-climate-technology-provides-agricultural-insurance-farmers">Pula uses cutting-edge technology</a> coupled with partnerships with seed, fertilizer, and credit providers to make agricultural insurance feasible for rural farmers. Customers read about Pula’s coverage on a sticker on the bag of seed or fertilizer they’re purchasing, and then they register their unique policy via their mobile phone. Pula has designed their free coverage in a way that’s relevant for farmers. Using satellite data, Pula can provide farmers with a new bag of seed while they are still in the planting season. Doing so gives farmers another chance at a harvest.</li>
 	<li><strong>Backend claims automation: </strong>Ultimately, the most important part of insurance is getting a claim paid. Claim processes in emerging markets are notoriously slow and unreliable. Often customers are unaware of how to process a claim, or insurers require onerous paperwork to submit one. Once received, it can take time — something many customers don’t have. Insurtech companies are leveraging technology to automate much of the claims process, relying on agents at the relevant points in the claims journey. For example, Toffee is developing a fully digital claims experience where customers can submit and track claims on their smartphone app. Pula relies on satellite and yield data to automate claims decisions, proactively letting customers know once they qualify for a payout. Lumkani’s heat detector informs the company of a possible fire and sends one of its agents within a day to investigate and support a customer through the claim.</li>
</ol>
We’re seeing incredible innovations in insurance, similar to what we saw in the lending space just a few years ago. From acquisition to underwriting to customer engagement, insurtech companies have a real opportunity to increase access and improve the quality of this critical financial service.

Four innovations making insurtech more inclusive

The world’s poor live only one illness, drought, or flood away from disaster. The world’s most vulnerable people don’t have the basic financial tools needed to protect their families, homes, and livelihoods.

Both the need and the opportunity is enormous. The Center for Financial Inclusion at Accion (CFI) and the Institute of International Finance found that the estimated addressable market of uninsured people is <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/new-strategies-technologies-making-insurance-more-michael-schlein/?published=t">3.8 billion</a>.

Why are so many people left unprotected? It’s largely due to the high costs of designing, delivering, and administering insurance products. Creating these products and services for low-income customers can be lengthy, difficult, and expensive.

This is something we can, should, and must fix. And it’s why Accion is so committed to creating inclusive insurance that protects the world’s underserved people and businesses.

One of the ways that we’re helping extend coverage to more people is by <a href="https://www.accion.org/four-innovations-making-insurtech-more-inclusive/">investing in and supporting innovative insurance startups</a>. New technologies can fundamentally change the costs of providing policies to the underserved: <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/time-for-insurance-companies-to-face-digital-reality">McKinsey &amp; Company</a> estimates that automation can cut the costs of managing a claim by 30 percent.

At Accion, we provide new insurtech companies with the capital and support they need to expand: these resources help them integrate new technology far faster than legacy financial service providers. <a href="https://www.accion.org/how-we-work/invest/accion-venture-lab">Accion Venture Lab</a> made its first three insurtech investments this year. These three startups are using new technology to make insurance more inclusive:
<ul>
 	<li><a href="https://www.accion.org/insurtech-fire-protection-south-africa">Lumkani</a> uses an internet-connected heat detector to give South Africans living in informal settlements insurance that protects against loss of life, shelter, and assets in the case of a fire.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://www.accion.org/changing-climate-technology-provides-agricultural-insurance-farmers">Pula</a> bundles insurance with seed, fertilizer, and credit, using satellite data to see how a client’s farm is doing and providing them with agricultural advice via text messages.</li>
 	<li><a href="https://www.accion.org/toffee-insurance-closes-1-5-million-in-seed-funding">Toffee</a> works with retailers to sell insurance policies that cover relevant products — for instance, selling personal accident and bicycle damage insurance in addition to the bicycle itself.</li>
</ul>
In time, startups like these can scale to serve more people and businesses. Take AllLife, the first company in the world to provide insurance for people diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. It uses a proprietary, tech-driven model for continual operating and patient care that’s helped cut premiums by 40 percent if clients follow their treatment regimes. AllLife was launched in South Africa and has licensed its technology to <a href="https://www.accion.org/insurtech-leader-alllife-raises-funds-to-expand-coverage-to-people-living-with-diabetes-and-hiv">Royal London</a>, the U.K.’s largest mutual life, pensions, and investments company. By reducing back-office costs, AllLife’s underwriting innovations can change how insurance policies are created and administered, ultimately protecting more people.

And it’s not just fintech companies that are working to make insurance more inclusive. We’re working with several joint mobile network operator/insurance partnerships in In Sierra Leone, Tanzania, and Zambia, advising several organizations on how to better leverage data to design better mass market, micro-health, medical, personal, and business insurance.

Microfinance institutions are also working to protect their clients: we’re working with MFIs in Colombia, India, Mexico, Tanzania, Uganda, and elsewhere to design health, motor vehicle, fire, livestock, and funeral insurance.

In addition, we’re working to define some best practices about creating inclusive insurance. CFI continues to publish important <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/the-radical-reinvention-of-inclusive-insurance">research on inclusive insurance</a>: providers need to find an appropriate balance of “tech and touch” to enroll customers, resolve issues, and make payments. Moreover, the products they design must be simple: customers love something they understand, and the easier it is to administer a product, the lower the costs are for the insurer. CFI has also identified the <a href="https://www.centerforfinancialinclusion.org/ten-years-gone-ten-years-to-go-taking-inclusive-insurance-from-adolescence-to-adulthood">bottlenecks that limit the spread of inclusive insurance</a>: regulators need to approve new products much quicker than they are and allow for a completely paperless process.

We’ll continue watching, supporting, and investing in insurtech to protect more underserved families and businesses.

How can we bring insurance to those who need it most?

<p class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">“I have never been so proud because, that season, insurance made that harvest possible,” recalls Rose Goslinga, CEO and co-founder of Pula. She saw how insurance enabled 10,000 farmers in East Africa to reap a harvest against all odds in 2009. Rains fell early that year — well before farmers were ready — and the seeds they had already planted didn’t germinate. In most places across Africa and around the world, those farmers would have been out of luck. However, because their seeds were covered by insurance, the farmers were able to pick up new bags and enjoy a successful harvest in the latter part of the season. On <a href="https://soundcloud.com/accioninternational/pula-and-protecting-smallholder-farmers-through-insurance">our latest episode of VentureKast</a>, the podcast about the most innovative and impactful financial inclusion startups in the world, I sat down with Rose to discuss <a class="markup--anchor markup--p-anchor" href="https://medium.com/accion/in-a-changing-climate-technology-provides-a-lifeline-for-farmers-c2eb5133d79f" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Pula, Accion’s first ever investment in insurance</a> for farmers.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Pula develops insurance products and distributes them to farmers, while simultaneously offering farm advisory services so that, in Rose’s words, their customers “can be the best farmers they can be.” Pula bundles their insurance products with farm inputs, such as fertilizer, seeds, or credit. This substantially lowers risk for farmers who want to be able to invest in more expensive, higher-yielding seeds and fertilizers. The insurance provides income stability for farmers who are at the mercy of droughts, floods, and pests. Pula uses satellite data and imagery to be able to underwrite these policies more efficiently and provide timely agronomic advice.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p">Across Pula’s eight African markets, insurance penetration rates are typically less than 5 percent. Pula innovates to improve this. The farmers realize that insurance is useful, but they are not willing to pay its upfront cost.</p>

<blockquote class="graf graf--pullquote graf--startsWithDoubleQuote"><strong class="markup--strong markup--pullquote-strong">“They don’t wake up in the morning thinking, ‘I want to buy new insurance.’ They think, ‘I have school fees to pay’ or when it starts raining, ‘I need to buy fertilizer now; where is my money for fertilizer?’”</strong></blockquote>
So, Pula figured out another way; they partner with input distributors to insure all bags of seeds and fertilizers — the costs are simply included in each bag. If the rain doesn’t arrive on time, the farmers can receive a voucher for another bag and plant again for a second chance at the harvest. The key is that the distributor pays for the insurance, not the farmer.
<p class="graf graf--p">Technology underpins Pula’s business model. Satellite imagery monitors weather conditions to facilitate underwriting and expedite claims processes. QR codes allow farmers to register for insurance policies by pushing a few buttons. SMS messages relay immediate advice on when to apply fertilizer or top-dressing to maximize yields. This use of technology allows Pula to scale much faster than most insurance companies and to reach previously inaccessible communities.</p>
<p class="graf graf--p graf--startsWithDoubleQuote">“What do farmers really want? They don’t necessarily want insurance, but they do want fertilizer, they do want seeds,” says Rose. Pula’s short-term insurance products are revolutionary for many of its customers, especially considering how few of the world’s 500 million smallholder farmers have insurance. For Rose, the future means expanding Pula’s work to provide seeds, fertilizer, and insurance around the world.</p>

Pula and protecting smallholder farmers through insurance

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<p style="text-align: center"><em>Seed round, led by Accion Venture Lab, supports Pula’s innovative model providing agricultural insurance to help farmers mitigate risks and achieve higher incomes</em></p>
<em>Mollis, Switzerland – April 17, 2018</em>– Insurtech startup Pula announced today that it has closed a seed funding round to advance its efforts to provide insurance to smallholder farmers in Africa and South Asia. The round was led by Accion Venture Lab, the seed-stage investment initiative of financial inclusion leader Accion, with participation from Omidyar Network, Mulago Foundation, Choiseul Africa Capital, Mercy Corps’ Social Venture Fund, and several angel investors. This injection of funds will enable Pula to invest further in its technology platform and service offerings.

Pula partners with Fortune 500 companies, global NGOs, microfinance institutions, research institutions, and governments to bundle insurance with seed, fertilizer, credit, and other farm inputs purchased by smallholder farmers, providing them with income stability. The partnership model enables Pula to reach large populations of farmers across several countries, and the bundling allows farmers to purchase and access quality high-yielding inputs and credit.

“We are thrilled to welcome our new partners to the Pula team. Their collective support, global expertise, and diverse industry knowledge will strengthen our approach as we target to insure the 1.5 billion previously unbanked and uninsured smallholder farmers worldwide,” said Rose Goslinga, CEO and Co-founder of Pula.

Pula uses satellite data and farm yield measurements to understand how weather patterns affect a smallholder farmer’s yield, and uses this information to automate compensation in case of loss. The company also provides farmers with targeted agronomic advice via SMS messaging, helping them grow more from their existing landholdings.

“Two-thirds of the world’s working poor make their living in agriculture, but reaching them can be a challenging and expensive task for insurers. Pula offers farmers a safety net that reduces risk and makes higher-yielding inputs and insurance affordable,” said Michael Schlein, President and CEO of Accion.

“Pula’s experienced management team, unique distribution model, and strategic partnerships position it well to have a wide-reaching, scalable impact across geographies,” said Amee Parbhoo, Director of Investments at Accion Venture Lab.

Started in 2015, Pula has scaled its insurance offering across nine countries in Africa and South Asia. In 2017, Pula facilitated insurance coverage to more than 600,000 farmers in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, and is currently piloting a new program in India.
<p style="text-align: center"><strong>###</strong></p>
<strong>About Pula</strong>
At Pula, we are radically restructuring agricultural insurance, using technology to insure the previously unbanked, uninsured, untapped market of 1.5 billion smallholders worldwide. We work in nine countries across Africa and Asia, and in 2017 alone, we facilitated crop and livestock insurance cover to 611,000 farmers in Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Malawi. Our Founders work in agriculture insurance has been recognized by several international awards including the Financial Times/IFC Award for Sustainable Finance. We work with Fortune 500 Companies, Global NGO’s, Microfinance Instructions, Research Institutions, and Governments to help provide smallholders the protection they need in an increasingly unpredictable climate.

<strong>About Accion Venture Lab</strong>
Accion Venture Lab is the world’s leading seed-stage investor in fintech for the underserved. Venture Lab invests capital in, and provides support to, innovative fintech startups that increase access to, improve the quality of, or reduce the cost of financial services for the underserved at scale. Since launching in 2012, Venture Lab has deployed over US$10 million across more than 30 startups that work in over 20 countries worldwide. Venture Lab is a part of Accion, a global nonprofit committed to creating a financially inclusive world, with a pioneering legacy in microfinance and fintech impact investing. Accion catalyzes financial service providers to deliver high-quality, affordable solutions at scale for the three billion people who are left out of – or poorly served by – the financial sector. For more than 50 years, Accion has helped tens of millions of people through its work with more than 90 partners in 40 countries. For further information, visit<a href="https://www.accion.org/venturelab">https://www.accion.org/venturelab</a>.

<strong>About Omidyar Network</strong>
Omidyar Network is a philanthropic investment firm dedicated to harnessing the power of markets to create opportunity for people to improve their lives. Established in 2004 by eBay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife Pam, the organization invests in and helps scale innovative organizations to catalyze economic and social change. Omidyar Network has committed more than $1 billion to for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations that foster economic advancement and encourage individual participation across multiple initiatives, including Digital Identity, Education, Emerging Tech, Financial Inclusion, Governance &amp;amp; Citizen Engagement, and Property Rights. To learn more, visit<a href="http://www.omidyar.com">www.omidyar.com</a>, and follow on Twitter<a href="https://twitter.com/omidyarnetwork?lang=en">@omidyarnetwork</a><a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23positivereturns&amp;amp;src=typd&amp;amp;lang=en">#PositiveReturns</a>

<strong>About Mulago</strong>
Mulago is a San Francisco-based private foundation designed and built to carry on the life work of Rainer Arnhold. Rainer's passion was the prospect of a better life for children in poverty, and so the Foundation's work is focused on solutions that meet the basic needs of the poorest families. After Rainer's untimely death in 1993, his brother Henry Arnhold established the Foundation in its current form. We invest (grants, debt &amp;amp; equity) in organizations with a high impact scalable model to address basic needs of the poor. In our fellows program, we find and fund high-potential early stage organizations and equip them with the tools to design for impact at scale. Through our portfolio, we continue to invest as organizations deliver on the much-coveted "hockey stick" slope of impact. We fund on the basis of impact and the potential for scale. We do it with unrestricted funds and minimal hassle. For more information, visit:<a href="http://mulagofoundation.org/">http://mulagofoundation.org/</a>.

<strong>About Choiseul Africa Capital</strong>
Choiseul Africa Capital is a new Private Equity Fund Manager, which is majority owned by successful African entrepreneurs with deep interests and networks across the continent. Choiseul Africa Capital is currently targeting highly scalable small companies promoting robust, tech-enabled solutions that enhance carbon neutral economic growth and positively impact the lives of African citizens by addressing two challenges, green energy adoption and food security. Headquartered in Mauritius, it has offices in Paris, London and Lagos.

<strong>About Mercy Corps’ Social Venture Fund</strong>
Mercy Corps' Social Venture Fund is a seed and early-stage impact fund that invest in and provides a platform to accelerate the growth of disruptive startup businesses that have the potential to positively impact millions. In partnership with social entrepreneurs, we see complex global challenges as an invitation: to pioneer paths out of poverty, to forge innovative business models, to create solutions that break through entrenched challenges. Mercy Corps is a leading global organization powered by the belief that a better world is possible. In disaster
, in hardship, in more than 40 countries around the world, Mercy Corps partners to put bold solutions into action—helping people triumph over adversity and build stronger communities from within. Find out more about Social Ventures at Mercy Corps:<a href="https://www.mercycorps.org/innovations/social-venture-fund">https://www.mercycorps.org/innovations/social-venture-fund</a>

<strong>MEDIA CONTACT:</strong>

Katie Mounts (Accion)

<a href="mailto:kmounts@accion.org">kmounts@accion.org</a>

+1 202.280.5859

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Pula Secures Funding from Global Investors to Support Smallholder Farmers in Africa and South Asia

Crop Insurance

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Pula and protecting smallholder farmers through insurance

Pula Secures Funding from Global Investors to Support Smallholder Farmers in Africa and South Asia