We believe that in many countries in the Southern hemisphere there is ample opportunity for building sustainability-driven businesses.
However, in the market there is notorious lack of private risk capital which would help circumvent the necessities grassroots entrepreneurs have to confront when trying to find professional lending institutions which may help them finance their ventures. In between micro-finance and strategic philanthropic investment there is a need for new forms of private enterprise funding.
3Pontes AG is a social venture capital firm intending to close this gap. We are taking short- to medium-term ownership in promising business ventures in order to help replicate as well as to scale their success potential. Creating successful microfranchising ventures in turn will be the path for private business entrepreneurs to gain ownership and become partners in 3Pontes AG.
In short, 3Pontes AG applies a social business philosophy to address the potential for community self-help initiatives at the bottom of the pyramid.
>> contact us @ Oberwilerstr. 35, CH-4054 Basel/BS, Switzerland, tel +41 61 7115063
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To deliver on our mission we use existing approaches and proven models as basic elements. Our business development scheme involves a three-step procedure:
In a first phase, for a particular investment theme in a selected country a partner consortium is established. Secondly, we found a subsidiary which has enabling infrastructure as its core function. Once we have built this foundation we look for adequate business opportunities applying the microfranchising model (cf http://bit.ly/dUXHpQ). In this third phase 3Pontes adopts the function of a system integrator. Throughout the whole process we will collaborate with a variety of institutional and business partners.
SOCAP10 — Social Capital Markets Conference 2010 in San Francisco CA was another fascinating gathering of individuals from all relevant institutions interested in building the social business sector.
In the day 3 open space phase of the conference a number of break-out sessions offered opportunities to make contacts with potential partners, in particular in the area of microfranchising business development.
3Pontes addresses less priviliged entrepreneurs in their quest to create sustainable livelihoods for themselves and their communities. As an early-stage venture capital firm our approach to investing is centered on a thematic focus. Our current themes include, but are not limited to:
> Mobile Internet
> New renewable energies
> Eco-Mobility
> Eco-Tourism
> Sustainable agriculture
> Water & sanitation
Driven by an entrepreneurial mindset we will base our investment decisions on solid research. Our approach to investment analysis is characterized by the Suaheli word “haraka haraka, haina baraka”.
To investigate a particular sector we will devote considerable time and effort up-front. Before we take an investment decision we develop a clear vision of the success potential of a particular business opportunity as regards its scope, scalability and replicability.
Our investment appraisal procedure consists of an initial screening which may take in between 14-30 days. In case of a favorable initial decision a detailed project analysis will normally take around 14-60 days followed by project due diligence to be concluded after another 14-60 days.
I. The objective of 3Pontes is to support self-help initiatives on private and community levels to create innovative solutions in the areas of production and consumption that direct society towards following a sustainable development path. 3Pontes views economic profit as a means to achieve fundamental goals of human society adherent to the principles of sustainable development.
II. This also implies financial and economic sustainability whereas businesses having profit maximization as principal driver are excluded.
III. 3Pontes invests in people and in their aspirations to bring about a sustainable common future. Investing in sustainability-driven businesses embraces paying market wages to the workforce and improving working conditions.
IV. All funds generated by 3Pontes ventures are reinvested in growing and improving sustainability-driven businesses.
V. 3Pontes stands for the enhancement of joy through sustainability-driven business development.
On April 16, 2010, the first “Stakeholder Consultative Meeting on Sustainable Entreneurship” took place in Wuppertal, Germany, organized by the Centre for Sustainabable Consumption and Production (www.scp-centre.org) that was established in 2005 as an affiliated not-for-profit “think-and-do-tank” emerging from a collaboration between two world-renowned institutions: the Wuppertal Institute (WI) and the United Nations Envirnonment Programme (UNEP) driven by its Sustainable Consumption & Production Branch (http://bit.ly/a8888A).
Invited participants were experts from European (ITA, SWE, NL, GER, ESP, CH) and African universities (Tanzania, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Ethiopia, Egypt). In parallel, they were attending a full-week “train the trainer” seminar focused on the development of sustainable business models for Africa.
Across national and cultural barriers within the workshop a strong correlation between world views became apparent. The experts strongly agreed on the basic necessity to create human lifestyles headed towards a more sustainable path in our common future. This transformation needs to take place today in order to prevent a scenario of global environmental collapse from materializing.
To meet this end, participants developed a joint agenda to empower and to facilitate entrepreneurial initiatives driven by the sustainable development paradigm, to replicate and to scale their social impact as well as to set an adequate framework for sustainable development policies in their countries.
Ecoturismo en el Perú
Inkaterra, based in Lima, Peru, offers ecotourism for wealthy foreign tourists. Originally founded as a non-profit venture in 1975, today Inkaterra is operating as a for-profit company. Currently it operates three luxury accommodation operations in Peru, including lodges in the Amazon rain forest. Located next to the Tambopata National Reserve, one of its sites encompasses a tourism complex of 35 lodges.
During its growth Inkaterra had to overcome issues of cooperation with indigenous communities in the Amazon region on the one hand - problems encountered included different understanding of concepts such as democracy and property rights, lack of exposure to modern technologies, and communication failures; and institutional void on the other - a lack of functioning institutions of public governance combined with underdeveloped public policy and a weakly defined regulatory framework which represented a threat to the long-term investments of Inkaterra in the region.
Inkaterra has successfully managed to pioneer the field of sustainable tourism in the Peruvian part of the Amazon region by developing a holistic concept to include indigenous communities into their operations. Furthermore, they have been able to use luxury tourism as a vehicle to promote ecotourism, which in this case entails conservation of the biodiversity of the Amazon rainforest and the protection of the rights of indigenous communities.
The case of Inkaterra may serve as a template for successful development strategies for sustainability-driven tourism in the Amazon region.
