Impact Investment Exchange Asia invests in Indian Social Enterprise Spring Health

Singapore based Impact Investment Exchange Asia (IIX) has announced today that its Impact Partners platform has successfully facilitated an investment from two private investors, alongside lead investors from the Artha initiative and the Stone Family Foundation, into Spring Health Water (India) Pte. Ltd., a for-profit Social Enterprise that provides safe and affordable drinking water to rural customers in India.

The investment will enable Spring Health to expand its operations throughout the Eastern states of India and impact the lives of over 400,000 people.

Spring Health was founded by Dr. Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises (iDE), a non-profit organization which creates livelihood opportunities for poor rural households and Jacob Mathew, a serial entrepreneur who has set up design firms, a manufacturing unit, and retail enterprises.

Spring Health distributes safe and affordable water to villagers in Eastern India. To date, Spring Health has provided over 38,000 people in 95 villages with access to safe drinking water by building water tanks at kiranas (mom-and-pop shops) of rural entrepreneurs. Sourced locally, the water is treated with chlorine and sold at very low prices. Spring Health aims to impact over 800,000 households over the next two years and over 8 million people within the next 5 years.

“I’m delighted to have been introduced to a group of passionate impact investors through the IIX network. The investment will accelerate our provision of affordable and safe drinking water to rural people and support the organization in expanding its impact across more villages.” – Jacob Mathew, Founder of Spring Health.

Spring Health had the opportunity to showcase its business to accredited investors at this year’s Impact Forum, an annual event co-organised by IIX and its sister not-for-profit organization, Shujog. IIX also introduced the company to its Impact Partners investor base and facilitated the investment process by securing two private investors. Meanwhile Shujog helped Spring Health create a social impact framework for measuring and assessing their impact.

“IIX is delighted to have assisted Spring Health in raising investment capital which will allow it to scale up its current operations and expand the impact of its activities. We are also pleased to be able to support World Water Week, with the timely closing of this deal. This demonstrates our commitment to this year’s theme of “Water Cooperation: Building partnerships”. By facilitating access to capital for Social Enterprises through its platforms, IIX continues to contribute to the growth of social capital markets in Asia,” said Robert Kraybill, Managing Director, IIX.

Impact Investment Exchange is a Singapore-based organization with a mission to provide Social Enterprises (SEs) in Asia with greater access to capital, allowing them to more rapidly expand the impact of their activities. IIX operates three investment platforms – Impact Incubator, Impact Partners and Impact Exchange. Impact Incubator focuses on raising seed capital for start-up SE’s while Impact Partners is a private placement platform dedicated to growth-stage SE’s that are looking for expansion capital. IIX recently launched Impact Exchange in partnership with the Stock Exchange of Mauritius. Impact Exchange is Asia’s first trading platform where mature SE’s can raise capital through the issuance of securities. IIX’s sister not-for-profit company Shujog assists in capital raising through its proprietary impact assessment, research, advocacy and advisory work.

Related article: Spring Health: How Design Thinking Brought Clean Water to Rural India.