In an interview, Sam Parker, director of Shell Foundation, talks about impact investment, early-stage investing in social enterprises to meet the ambitious sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations, and lack of capital for such early-stage enterprises.

In the last few years, we have seen new pools of capital come into the late-stage impact investing space, including some traditional private equity managers. How does the early-stage space, where Shell Foundation operates in, fare when it comes to availability of capital for social enterprises?

That late-stage space has attracted a lot of interest. We are certainly pleased that there is a concentrated effort from traditional investors to focus on such companies that are creating social and environmental outcomes. Where we are in the way the market is going, I think successful stories of social enterprises that are genuinely accelerating the SDG targets are not very many.

We need more early-stage funding to get more of these companies up and running and viable and investable. And that capital is still very scarce. There is a considerable growth of capital chasing later-stage opportunities, but still a significant scarcity of patient, risk-tolerant capital for the early-stage work.

Read the full article about early-stage social enterprise by Swaraj Singh Dhanjal at Livemint