"Donor agencies and foundations use grants to stimulate entrepreneurial growth in developing countries. However, some practitioners have asked whether these grants tend to flow to expatriate entrepreneurs with ties to developed countries (where most grants originate), rather than to local entrepreneurs. This article tackles this question using a data set of 3,434 nascent ventures from 92 developing countries. The authors find that ventures with ties to a developed country are significantly more likely to raise grant financing and in more substantial amounts. Ventures with a founder born in a developed country are the most likely to receive grants, with a weaker effect when considering prior work experience in a developed country. This “expat gap” cannot be explained by differences in education level, prior experience, or ties to other developing countries. Donors seeking to support local entrepreneurs in developing countries should consider ways to make their recruitment and selection processes more equitable."

"This study, which is part of a larger financial performance series, provides the first comprehensive analysis of the financial performance of 55 private real assets impact investment funds in three sectors: timber, real estate, and infrastructure. The report also launches the Real Assets Impact Investing Benchmarks, which will continue to track the financial performance of impact investing funds across the three sectors; Cambridge Associates will update performance data on the benchmarks quarterly. Encouragingly, the findings show that risk-adjusted market rate returns are achievable in impact investing, as evidenced by return distributions of similar funds with no environmental or social objectives; however, fund selection remains important."

"This first of a kind report provides detailed cluster analysis of 398 impact enterprises across the three levers in five East African countries. The report is written and presented to be useful to all development sector stakeholders, with specific insights to inform decisions of investors, enterprises, and non-financial support providers across East Africa."

"The Gender Equality Mainstreaming (GEM) Framework is a practical manual and toolkit for assessing gender equality, and identifying, implementing and measuring gender equality mainstreaming strategies within companies. The framework builds upon the environmental, social and governance (ESG) investment standard by mainstreaming gender across ESG criteria. Designed for organizations seeking financial and impact returns through investing or providing support to companies, the manual is applicable to a wide range of investors (e.g. private equity funds, government donors, foundations) and capacity builders (e.g. accelerators, technical assistance providers, NGOs). The ultimate aim of the framework is to transform companies to be more gender equitable while supporting business growth and impact."

"The Global Cleantech Innovation Index (GCII) programme investigates where, relative to GDP, entrepreneurial clean technology companies are most likely to emerge from over the next 10 years - and why. Drawing on a wide range of factors and sources, the study seeks to answer the same question as the 2012 and 2014 GCII reports, namely: which countries currently have the greatest potential to produce entrepreneurial cleantech start-up companies that will commercialise clean technology innovations over the next 10 years?"

"Developing ecosystems can be a fuzzy business. Together with 300 partners, we made it a science. Startup Genome has nearly doubled the number of ecosystems studied since 2019 - assessing over 270 ecosystems across over 100 countries to rank the top 30 globally and runners-up."

"The GRI Standards help organizations’ understand their outward impacts: on the economy, environment, and society. This increases accountability and enhances transparency on their contribution to sustainable development. Organizations can either use the GRI Standards to prepare a sustainability report in accordance with the Standards. Or they can use selected Standards, or parts of their content, to report information for specific users or purposes, such as reporting their climate change impacts for their investors and consumers."

"Do business accelerators affect new venture performance? We investigate this question in the context of Start-Up Chile, an ecosystem accelerator. We focus on two treatment conditions typically found in business accelerators: basic services of funding and coworking space, and additional entrepreneurship schooling. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that schooling bundled with basic services can significantly increase new venture performance. In contrast, we find no evidence that basic services affect performance on their own. Our results are most relevant for ecosystem accelerators that attract young and early-stage businesses and suggest that entrepreneurial capital matters in new ventures."

"Donor agencies, philanthropists, and social innovators are much enamored of financial inclusion these days. This report explores current limitations of financial inclusion and makes the case for why financing SMEs (or the missing middle) is so difficult, and so important."

"This report is the first of its kind to understand the landscape of Angel Investment Networks in Southeast Asia and explores the challenges and opportunities for angel investors in the region. The report also places a special focus on Gender Lens Investing and the drivers for angel investors to make gender-focused investments to contribute to the development of an inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem in Asia. This research aims to support the development of the angel investment market in Southeast Asia through three key approaches: First, it aims to Complete a mapping of established Angel Investment Networks (AINs) across Southeast Asia (SEA) that are actively investing in early-stage enterprises. Secondly, the report identifies and analyzes key aspects and good practice of active AIN structures and impact models in Southeast Asia. Finally, it provides a general overview of where and how Gender Lens Investing (GLI) practices take place across AINs in Southeast Asia to further advance the implementation of GLI in the region."