Yunus Social Busines (YSB) and its sister organisation Zero Poverty Ventures are cooperating with Global Social Impact (GSI) and the Open Value Foundation, founded by María Ángeles, to bring expansion funding to high potential Social Businesses in East Africa.

Professor Muhammud Yunus joined the Open Value Foundation and the Global Social Impact Fund team this weekend in Santander to celebrate the partnership and speak to university students in Spain.
The GSI Fund have provided further financing to some of our YSB portfolio companies in Uganda. These include Tugende, a moto-taxi financing business that secures higher incomes and the opportunities for micro-entrepreneurs to own their own business and Ankole Coffee Producers' Cooperative Union (ACPCU), a coffee cooperative bringing together farmers to secure higher prices and better working conditions.
At both GSI and YSB we believe in working together to expand the eco-system of social businesses and support network available to them. Therefore, it is vitally important to connect social businesses with further funding where possible and we look forward to more collaboration in the future!
ACPCU in UgandaACPCU in Uganda


Along with The Center for Sustainable Finance and Private Wealth (CSP) at the University of Zurich went out and about around São Paulo at the start of February to explore the ecosystem of social businesses and investment. Take a look at our fantastic week in the video:

Since the 1980s, pioneers like Bill Drayton, Muhammad Yunus and Anita Roddick have led through action, creating powerful examples of business solutions to societal or environmental issues. They called it social business, social entrepreneurship or impact entrepreneurship.

Financing and supporting early-stage businesses in Uganda is not an easy task. In this report with USAID we look at what we have learned from our portfolio over the last few years and how this helps to inform our investment criteria going forward.