Its founder, Will Poole, says the company will manage USD $ 1 billion worldwide.
In November, Will Poole, one of the founders of the international social impact investment accelerator Capria, traveled to our country to encourage investment in venture capital and meet with his Chilean partners, including LarrainVial.
Accompanied by the regional director for Latin America, Juan Luis Palma – who will lead the office that will open in Chile in 2020, and the investment fellow, Víctor Vasquez, the executive says that they are still betting their chips in Chile, despite the uncertainty that It can generate the social crisis and, in fact, it affirms that it is an opportunity to make visible the investment with social impact.
How is the investment with social impact in Chile reflected?
Will Poole: For example, our partners here, Fen Ventures, have invested in a company that has a biological treatment for agriculture that increases production by 10%. If he sells that product he earns good money, but the farmer buys that product and his corn and soy produce 10% more. The productivity of agriculture is increasing and good business is being done.
What are your plans for Chile?
Will Poole: By the end of next year we expect to have assets under management for USD $ 1 billion through all the management in the world. This is how we build more decentralized funds up instead of top-down. But there is a place in the middle, which is where we have to have a regional leadership, which is what we want to do in Santiago, installing an office.
That, despite the social crisis that the country is going through?
Will Poole: It is clear that there is still some discontent and maybe that was below the surface and was not visible before. It is now visible. We have been analyzing this problem for almost 10 years around the world and discovered that. There are strategies that allow you to build businesses that address exactly that problem. That would help low and middle-income people get services and products that they might not have been able to access before.
Juan Luis Palma: We are 100% committed to making investments with social impact in Chile. There are many solutions to social problems that we have seen in other countries that we believe can be applied here. We have funds in Africa, Asia, Latin America and we invest in solutions for social problems in the countries.
Has the crisis modified any decision regarding Chile?
No. As impact investors, we travel the world and in developed and developing economies there are always problems. The issue is how quickly society and government react to these problems.
Nor the idea of a new Constitution?
No. They have a very stable process. This has been the case since the end of Pinochet. Every political system has ups and downs, the United States included. And the fact is that the country will survive.
Capria will open the office in March 2020, how is the team search going?
Juan Luis Palma: I already started it and we are mainly looking for people with experience in investments in the region and with social awareness and intention to help, wanting to improve the quality of life of the base of the pyramid. Therefore, I want people who know better the business and investment experience and who, in general, care about improving the lives of the most disadvantaged.
This article was originally published on Diario Financiero. Above mentioned image is a snapshot of the printed version.
