Quona has been backing fintech companies driving financial inclusion in emerging markets since 2015. Now, the rest of the world is taking note, and fintech and embedded finance models continue to dominate venture globally. In 2021, global fintech funding reached a record $132 billion, accounting for 21% of all venture dollars.
While still a project within Accion, Quona’s leaders collaborated with industry leaders—including other fintech funds—to develop a financial inclusion framework relevant beyond impact investors.
Quona was one of the early adopters of the GIIN’s Impact Reporting and Investing Standards (IRIS) and the Pulse industry database used to benchmark investors.
Fund I, or AFIF, was rated via the Global Impact Investing Rating System.
Quona was a key partner of the IMP since its early stages and were instrumental in shaping the IMP’s original framework—for example, helping shift one of the IMP’s “5 Dimensions of Impact” from “attribution” to “contribution,” which Quona finds to be a more reasonable way to assess indirect, systemic impact.
Quona harmonized its proprietary impact framework with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Impact Management Project.
Quona was one of the early private fund members of this initiative, formed to help investors shape a more inclusive digital financial ecosystem. Quona shared its metrics and experience in adapting microfinance social performance approaches to fintech.
Quona invested in team members and resources to refine Quona’s impact key performance indicators (KPIs), focusing on data consistency and aligning with IRIS+ metrics when possible.
In a commitment to continued learning and driving transparency and rigor in the impact investing industry, Quona became an early signatory of the Impact Principles.
Quona was selected for the 2020 Impact 50 Showcase.
We are excited to see the industry moving toward more transparency and rigor in impact measurement—values which are core to Quona, in addition to compelling financial performance.
Every Quona investment is screened for financial inclusion, which Quona has historically measured along three core dimensions:
Our proprietary impact measurement framework—designed in collaboration with industry peers and harmonized with global standards—was built to measure this impact in a way that is comparable to leading players in the field.
Sustainable Development Goals
Impact Management Project
Sustainable Development Goals
Impact Management Project
Sustainable Development Goals
Impact Management Project
We spent 2021 building and implementing an impact scorecard to assess our companies in a robust and systematic way.
Using impact data from Quona’s impact measurement framework, the impact scorecard enables us to analyze a company’s impact performance level in line with the Impact Management Project’s Impact Classes.
Avoiding
Harm
Advancing Access
Benefitting Stakeholders at Scale
Contributing to Solutions
Portfolio companies that have pivoted away from their original business model/target customer group.
Early-stage companies that have strong impact potential but have not yet reached significant scale or depth of direct impact or influence on the market.
Companies that have demonstrated strong and growing direct impact and have started to influence the market and ecosystem.
Companies that demonstrate significant direct impact on customers or beneficiaries (Access + Quality) as well as significant impact in their market and ecosystem (Markets).
Accounts for scale (# of MSMEs or customers served) and focus on underserved segments (% underserved).
Accounts for the quality of financial services provided as measured by affordability, product breadth, convenience and product fit.
Assesses if and to what extent a company is a market leader, informed by the company's scale and traction, launch of new and innovative products, and influence on imitators.
Captures the extent to which Quona is able to ‘crowd in’ capital to impactful companies in emerging markets.
Measures the share of diverse senior management in the company (inclusive of gender in all markets; and race in relevant markets).
We believe that hearing directly from customers is critical to understanding impact. So, we've engaged lean data service provider 60 Decibels to achieve three goals:
Obtain outcome-level impact data directly from customers
Better understand the impact of embedded finance models within Quona’s portfolio
Assess the value of customer-level data to Quona portfolio companies
Every year, we share aggregate impact data aligned with Quona’s impact measurement framework across the 8 most common and relevant financial inclusion KPIs used within the portfolio.
Before Wasoko, I would go to town for products, and that would take up much of my time and transport costs. Now I do not need to, since all of the products that I have ordered are delivered to my shop.”
The service shipment from Ula is very helpful for me to improve my life, because as a mother I have a lot of time to take care of my baby at home. So, I need not go outside to order stock for my shop.”
It made my life a lot easier, because I save money. With this money I pay the bills, especially electricity, which is very expensive. And the delivery point is close to my house. It helps me a lot.”
We are proud of the progress we made this year in strengthening our ability to effectively analyze company-level impact, inclusive of the customer-level data from the 60 Decibels pilots.
