Accion and Quona Capital have announced the final close of the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund, with a commitment of $141 million from a range of institutional investors. The fund will focus on Asia, with a particular emphasis on India and South-East Asia, and emerging markets in sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. It will invest in ventures that focus on inclusive financial technology, according to an Accion press release.

In India, the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund has invested in NeoGrowth, which offers card and other electronic payments receivables financing to SMEs; and, IndiaMART, a B2B listing and transactions platform for SMEs which is making a foray into associated payment and financial solutions. Just last week, the fund led a Series B round of ₹51 crore ($7.6 million) in Chennai-based CreditMantri, an online platform that helps borrowers know their credit score, improve their credit score and also connects borrowers and lenders.

The release quoted Michael Schlein, CEO and President, Accion, as saying that world over, three billion people are left out of, or poorly served by, the global financial system.

The Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund will help address this. “The fund will support innovators using new technologies to help create a financial system that works for everyone. By focussing on both social impact and financial returns, we believe the fund shows the importance of harnessing the capital markets to solve society’s most challenging problems,” he said in the release.

The fund’s investors include Accion, a global non-profit organisation that is also the fund’s sponsor and anchor investor; AXA Impact Fund; Blue Haven Initiative; Calvert Equity Portfolio; the Dalio Foundation; FMO of the Netherlands; IFC; Heifer Foundation; The Lemelson Foundaton; Mastercard; MetLife; and Prudential Financial. Quona Capital, a venture firm focussed on inclusive financial technology in emerging markets, manages the Accion Frontier Inclusion Fund.

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