Suddenly it is Sexy to Fund the Poor (SKS)

April 7, 2007 Posted by Media Exposure

Great ideas often spawn in the most terrible circumstances. One such idea is microfinance, often credited to last year’s Nobel prize winner Mohammad Yunus, who founded the immensely successful Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. 

Yunus began by giving a micro-loan of $27 to 42 impoverished families after witnessing the horrors of the great Bengal famine. But the idea, which was inspired by misery and depends on the poor, ironically, is attracting savvy, super-rich investors. 

“Microfinance is now sexy,” says Vikram Akula of SKS Microfinance, which has just received $11.5 million from private equity funds Sequoia Capital, Unitus Equity Fund, Odyssey Capital, SIDBI and venture capitalists Vinod Khosla and Ravi Reddy.

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