Impact Investing in Brazil

Last week, we at QMágico participated in the last-to-final work session with the 2011 Artemisia Accelerator class. The topic in question was Human Capital and Governance, something that is of both of vital importance to startups at an early stage of development and often overlooked.

Facilitated by HR guru with impressive qualifications Sandra Betti and by her incredibly engaging colleague at MBA Empressarial consulting company Marcia Sznifer, the two-day session centered on the importance and characteristics of good leadership, communication, and, specifically, do’s and don’ts of constructive feedback.

The content was well-presented and work sessions engaging, but what stood out most was the unmatched group dynamic of the accelerator class. Kicked off in the month of October, this group of 10 social enterprises from, I believe, 5 states of Brazil, has become perhaps the most tightly-knit support community I’ve seen since I quit volunteering at a children’s helpline.  At the time of extending thank you’s to Artemisia and the group at the closing of the event, everybody exchanged sincere reflections on the state of personal as well as social development in the country and tears of joy that only a sense of belonging as deep as shared at that moment could evoke.

As mentioned earlier, this accelerator class will wrap-up with a grand event on July 5^th in São Paulo, which will consist of final pitches by the 2011 class, teasers on the six enterprises taking part in the new class launched this May and updates on Artemisia’s revamped accelerator methodology and, most likely, scope of social impact.

Some facts on the new class:

• Despite considerable effort on the selection team’s part to expand the geography of accelerator participants, all 6 are from the state São Paulo (this trend is much in line with the social enterprise sector mapping results discussed in my previous post);
• The enterprises are from the areas of education (Geekie and Backpacker), health (Instituto Movere), access to market (BoPyra and Sementes de Paz) and technology for social inclusion (Quem Fala!);
• 5 are social enterprises and 1 is an NGO on its way to adopting a for-profit model;
• Instead of following the 9-month acceleration of the 2011 class, this one will be compacted into a more intense 5 month program;
• Topics to be covered in two-day work sessions will include:

1. Intro and entrepreneur biographies;
2. Deconstruction of the business model;
3. Commercial strategy and positioning;
4. Thinking like an investor;
5. Final pitches and graduation.

More coming soon!