Becoming a recognised leader in gender-smart investing and driving impact for female customers

By strengthening its gender lens investing approach to receive endorsement as a 2X Flagship Fund, we’ve helped Insitor Partners to drive positive impact across its portfolio including through gender-linked technical assistance.

Insitor Partners is a woman-led fund manager dedicated to improving accessibility and affordability of basic goods and services for low-income communities across South and Southeast Asia. Since 2015, our partnership with Insitor Partners has focused on addressing capital constraints for early-stage businesses, with a specific emphasis on empowering women who significantly influence household spending decisions in these regions.

In recognition of its dedication toward advancing opportunities for women, we supported Insitor to become the first Asian 2X Flagship Fund in 2022. This milestone led Insitor to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with us, affirming its commitment to enhancing gender balance within the fund manager, integrating explicit investment strategies to support gender equality, and supporting portfolio companies in implementing gender diversity initiatives.

Insitor has made significant strides in meeting its 2X commitments. Two thirds of the portfolio companies in its Insitor Impact Asia Fund II (IIAF II) meet at least one of the 2X Criteria.

Additionally, we have further supported Insitor in the integration of gender into its technical assistance for portfolio companies. One such example is CreditPer, a fintech company in Pakistan, and where we are seeking to drive up access and responsible usage of credit among women in Pakistan, a country where only 7 per cent of the female population are formally banked. As a part of our technical assistance project, CreditPer is aiming to extend loans to approximately 50,000 women between 2022 and 2024.