Unitus Group
Unitus is a federation of enterprises with a common mission to reduce global poverty through economic self-empowerment
Unitus was started with the strategy of leveraging business principles and market mechanisms in order to have a long-term, sustainable and widespread impact on reducing global poverty. As Unitus has identified new innovative opportunities for impact, Unitus has supported the setup of multiple independently managed ventures with high quality teams to focus on being catalysts in their respective areas of focus.
Unitus Labs (formerly Unitus, Inc.), founded in 2000, is a USA 501(c)(3) non-profit which manages the strategic direction and initiatives to achieve the Unitus mission of reducing global poverty through economic self-empowerment. Unitus Labs also manages the Unitus brand.
Unitus Investment Management (UIM), founded in 2005, is a USA 501(c)(3) non-profit which manages mission-related investments in ventures which have significant potential to reduce global poverty. UIM is a supporting organization of Unitus Labs.
Unitus Equity Fund, LP (UEF), setup in 2006, was the first privately-funded, early-stage venture equity fund focused on microfinance. Unitus conceived and launched UEF to demonstrate that the microfinance industry was a viable opportunity for investors looking for strong financial returns and large scale impact. UEF helped catalyze the market for microfinance investing, particularly in India. As a result, there are now more than a dozen equity funds and more than many hundred million dollars in private equity investment in the Indian microfinance sector. In 2009, Elevar Equity took over management of UEF.
Unitus Capital was founded in 2008 as a spin-out of Unitus Labs’ capital markets team. As this team grew more sophisticated and gained momentum, Unitus realized that it could serve many more MFIs and other base of the economic pyramid (BoP) focused enterprises with corporate finance services outside of the Unitus Labs non-profit structure. Unitus partnered with forward-thinking investors who provideed seed funding to launch Unitus Capital as a stand-alone firm with ambitious goals to accelerate the growth of the fast-emerging sector of businesses serving BoP markets in India and other Asia markets.
Unitus Impact was founded in 2011 to identify new opportunities to accelerate economic self-empowerment in innovative ways. Unitus Impact is an early-stage impact investing firm focused on creating new or improving existing livelihood opportunities for millions battling poverty.
Unitus Seed Fund was started as a pilot in late 2011 to accelerate the development of startups in developing countries serving large low-income populations. Unitus Seed Fund provides seed-stage equity capital to strong entrepreneurs who are building scaled, profitable businesses which provide a positive benefit to populations living at the base of the economic pyramid. In the summer of 2012, Unitus Seed Fund was spun out as a separate venture investment management firm and fund to scale-up investing operations and impact.
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