Veteran Impact Investor Bob Pattillo and Gray Matters Capital invest in Unitus Capital

One of Asia’s leading impact investment bank, Unitus Capital, announced today that leading impact investor Bob Pattillo’s Gray Matters Capital (d.b.a First Light Ventures) has invested an undisclosed amount in Unitus Capital (UC).UC will use the funds to further expand and drive capital to social business that improve lives of low income families while generating strong financial returns.UC was founded in July, 2008 by the international non-profit, Unitus Labs, and several leading global investors to accelerate the development of the capital markets for entrepreneurial businesses serving low-income populations in Asia and, eventually, globally. UC provides a range of investment banking services to facilitate access to venture and growth capital for businesses, and to enable investment seeking social and financial returns. Headquartered in Bangalore, with representation in New York, San Francisco and Sydney, UC’s work spans Asia in a range of sectors, including microfinance, renewable energy, health care, education, agriculture and affordable housing. In the past five years, UC has successfully raised over $800 million for ~40 clients, indirectly impacting more than 32 million people at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

Bob Pattillo is an entrepreneur and founder of The Indian School Finance Company, Gray Ghost Ventures, Gray Matters Capital, First Light Ventures, the IDEX Fellowship, and Village Capital. GMC invests in entrepreneurs who develop sustainable, market-based solutions for low-income customers globally. GMC serves the impact investing market by expanding opportunities for both investors and entrepreneurs. It identifies, funds, and matches early-stage, highly-scalable enterprises with later stage investors. GMC has invested in more than 80 companies since 2001, and these companies have served more than 10 million lives already – a fraction of their future potential.

Speaking about the transaction, Eric Savage, Co-Founder & President of United Capital, remarked, “Gray Matters Capital’s investment is a landmark event for UC. Bob Pattillo is the most active impact investor globally, and we couldn’t be more excited to have GMC join our amazing shareholder group. There are tremendous synergies between UC, and GMC’s various affiliated funds and investees. Together we will be able to help hundreds of impactful businesses scale much more rapidly.”

Bob Pattillo, Founder of First Light Ventures, said, “The secret to growing impact enterprises is human capital, human connection, and human encouragement: because they are in India, and from India, the team at UC can spend time with entrepreneurs and fund managers, get to know their families, visit customers together. The value is created with a collaborative spin; it’s the difference between incremental increases and quantum leaps in creativity and performance.”