Puvaneswary Ponniah's Contact Details

Puvaneswary Ponniah's Company Details

LIIN (Lanka Impact Investing Network)

Casselberry, Florida, United States • 1 - 10 Employees
Financial Services

As Sri Lanka's very first impact investment firm, LIIN is focused on channeling private capital to solve pressing social and environmental issues in Sri Lanka by promoting impact investing across the island. This includes actively investing in social enterprises through our impact investment funds as well as providing business development support to nurture a well-developed ecosystem of social entrepreneurs across the country. While impact investments are relatively common across India and South East Asia, Sri Lanka has been overlooked due to its small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) being too small to absorb larger investments. There are an estimated 6,000 -10,000 social enterprises operating across the manufacturing, agriculture, cultural, creative and environmental protection sectors across the island. However, the average turnover of each of these companies remain below USD 10,0000. Many of these SMEs are too large to benefit from microfinance loans and are unable to afford the high cost of debt but are also too small to absorb an investment larger than USD 10,000. Considering the cost of making an investment, it is not worthwhile for many of the larger impact investment funds to invest in Sri Lankan social enterprises. As such, smaller social enterprises continue to face a critical funding gap that hinders the growth of the social enterprise ecosystem in Sri Lanka.In an attempt to address this gap, the Lanka Impact Investment Network (LIIN) is currently raising two impact investments funds; a USD 5 million Social Enterprise Fund (SEF) and a USD 20 million Social Impact Capital (SIC). These are Sri Lanka's first impact investment funds and they are two of the only funds in the world that will deploy small investments to social enterprises across the country.