Venture Capital for MicroFinance: Chris Brookfield (Part 6)

Microfinance opportunities are growing throughout the world. The availability of data to support the microfinance trend is available from various sources. Depending on the location of the MFI, the cost of delivering the loan can be very low. SM: Can you cite that type of data? That is exactly the type of data you need,

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Who Should Buy Yahoo? For now, Nobody!

While I suggested 2 years back, that Yahoo and eBay should merge, at the moment, it appears that Yahoo has created a bigger mess than what eBay (or anyone else for that matter) ought to try to clean up on their shareholders’ clock. eBay, on the other hand, for the moment, looks like it has

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Cracking the Online Video Monetization Nut: Adap.tv CEO Amir Ashkenazi (Part 4)

I am always interested in companies which survived the crash, and especially interested when they are in such a competitive market. Here Amir outlines what steps were taken at Shopping.com led to the success of the company. SM: What did you do differently to make a 1997 founded company survive the worst downturn in the

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Venture Capital for MicroFinance: Chris Brookfield (Part 5)

Here the conversation directly addresses a common assumption that microfinance is not a profitable business model. SM: I would like to get back on topic and drill down on the assumption on returns. Microfinance may charge 18-25% interest and even so does not get even close to the types of returns the venture capital funds

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Germany Gets Digitized

By Jörg Überla, Guest Author In two years time, the days of analog TV transmission will be definitely over in Germany. Regardless whether you watch TV via cable, satellite or a simple antenna, you will receive just 0’s and 1’s when you turn on your TV. This digitization of the most time-consuming leisure activity in

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Venture Capital for MicroFinance: Chris Brookfield (Part 4)

The strategy of running an investment firm may vary, but the end goal is always healthy and compelling returns. SM: So you manage Unitus as a professional investment opportunity with similar goals as venture capital firms? CB: We look at investing very much as a derivative of venture capital. I would argue it is just

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BOP Shared Mobile Access (WRI)

Another innovative business model—shared access, in which an entrepreneur with a phone provides pay-per-use access to a community—has extended the social and economic impact of mobile phones beyond the subscriber base. In South Africa more than half the traffic on Vodacom’s mobile network in 2004 came not from its 8 million subscribers but from 4,400

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BOP Markets: Mobile Telephony (Excerpt from the WRI Report)

Perhaps the strongest and most dramatic BOP success story is mobile telephony. Between 2000 and 2005 the number of mobile subscribers in developing countries grew more than fivefold—to nearly 1.4 billion. Growth was rapid in all regions, but fastest in sub-Saharan Africa—Nigeria’s subscriber base grew from 370,000 to 16.8 million in just four years (World

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