Singh Nikita - Making a Difference

Shivani Siroya is a United Nations economist turned investment banker turned social entrepreneur. Her venture InVenture is the first global micro-investing platform, which has demonstrated an innovative use of mobile technology to provide a credit-scoring and a reporting platform to financial-services institutions and underserved micro-entrepreneurs in emerging countries. Their basic model consists of funds raised through individual investors through their web portal, and invested not as loans but as micro-equity in small but potentially scalable businesses in underserved areas. They work on a profit-sharing basis with the investor and investee and use their award-winning InSight mobile tracking system to gather daily financial data to deliver credit scores and performance analytics on investments. InVenture has pioneered a standardized credit-scoring system for unbanked individuals to qualify for financingsomething more than 270 crore individuals lack. They then provide financial literacy, accounting and credit scoring through InSight. The data captured by this mobile application enables services around education, financial metrics and partnerships to revolutionize the low-income financial-services industry. Fundamentally, InVentures focus on numbers and support for a micro-equity-based model enables higher levels for business growth and aims to create a strong and vibrant small business sector, providing employment and income to a large number of people in the developing world.

THE PETITE young woman standing in front of me was Shivani Siroya, founder of InVenture Fund, one of the worlds fastest-growing micro-investing platforms and a pioneer using mobile technologies for enabling micro-investments in small businesses in developing nations.

I was soon to learn that this high-energy young woman (well into her late twenties, she informed me gently upon my impertinent probing!) had roots in Rajasthan, India, acquired a masters in public health from Columbia University, worked at the United Nations in New York and then as an investment banker in Los Angeles. She was now using all this experience from the international development, public health and investment banking worlds to build one of the most unique funds in the world of development finance.

Shivanis story spans two countriesIndia and the USbut starts in Rajasthan. Shivanis family, going back at least four generations, calls Udaipur its home. This is where she grew up, and where most of her extended family lives. This is where her father started his journey in life, a journey that would take him across continentsfrom India to the USand that would take him across careersfrom physics to finance.

I must tell you something more about Dad, says Shivani. He had polio. My grandparents had three children before him, who had all died. Dad was the only survivor. His polio was contained in one leg, but there were a lot of problems in his childhood. His attacks paralysed him multiple times It was incredible what my grandfather and uncles did for him. They never made him feel helpless or even inferior in any way. They somehow instilled the confidence in him to do whatever he wanted in life. This is what brought him on his own to the United States

Shivanis paternal grandfather was a bank manager in Udaipur and a respected member of the local community. A strong believer in education, he always wanted his sonShivanis fatherto study physics. Shivanis father did eventually end up getting a masters in physics in Udaipurmainly perhaps to appease his strong-willed father! However, his passion was finance and, eventually, with his fathers blessing, he left his relatively comfortable life in Udaipur to find his way to the United States, where he enrolled at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Within a short period of time, however, he realized he had underestimated the costs of the education and could no longer afford to continue. He dropped out to find work to survive. He found a job at a light-bulb manufacturing plant in LA. His dexterity and efficiency in putting together light bulbs impressed his American boss, who immediately promoted him to the post of supervisor. The money was good, and he could now send some home for his family. Eventually, though, he had saved enough to give his finance education another attempt. Since US schools were expensive, he enrolled for an MBA at the University of Ottawa in Canada, and got his start in finance. Just after the completion of his course, however, he got news that his father had been in an accident. He rushed back to India, where destiny crossed his path with that of his future wife.