Fomento and other institutional and
private investors who were intrigued
by the Fund’s practical approach. The
Nature Conservancy serves as fund
manager, while a board of directors
comprising leaders from the conservation and investment fields provides
oversight.
In just nine years, EcoEnterprises
Fund has generated impressive results.
Some $6.3 million was invested in 23
sustainable companies in 10 Latin
American countries. Through the
Fund’s efforts, recipients were able to
leverage an additional $148 million in
new capital from commercial lenders
and private investors. Twenty-three
portfolio companies working with
289 nongovernmental organizations
and community groups created 2,000
jobs while generating $290 million in
sales. The conservation benefits—
habitat restoration and protection, biological corridor preservation and the development of sustainable livelihoods
in buffer zones—have also been far–
reaching: 1. 3 million acres (533,308
hectares) of land in 19 biologically
significant areas, seven of which are
World Heritage Sites, have been preserved over the same period.
In addition to Sambazon, the Fund
also invested $250,000 in one of the
world’s first certified organic shrimp
operations, BioCentinela, run by a
lawyer-turned-entrepreneur in Ecuador who left his practice to try his
hand at raising shrimp. BioCentinela is steadily restoring the critical
mangrove habitat of Ecuador while
selling organic shrimp products for
a premium, demonstrating that sustainable practices can make business
sense. Other green businesses that
owe their expansion and growth to
the Fund include a manufacturer of
by Tammy Newmark
capitalventureGREEN
he newest “miracle”
food in U.S. health food
circles is a juice made
from açai, a tiny Brazilian berry grown in the Amazon. A
palmberry about the size of a blueberry, açai has ten times the antioxidants of red wine. Not only is it
good for you: it’s good for the environment, thanks to sustainable harvesting techniques that have also
provided much-needed income to
Amazon communities. But the real
miracle about açai is how it came
to market.
The brainchild of two brothers,
Ryan and Jeremy Black, who discovered the health benefits of açai and
formed a company called Sambazon
do Brasil in 2003 to market it in the
U.S., açai products are now sold in
juicebars and supermarkets in all 50
U.S. states. What turned Sambazon
into a success was a timely, initial
investment of $225,000 from EcoEn-
terprises Fund, a unique capital ven-
ture partnership formed by the In-
ter-American Development Bank’s
Multilateral Investment Fund and
The Nature Conservancy.
For companies like Sambazon that
care as much about the social and environmental impacts of their operations as they do about profits, startup capital is hard to find. Traditional
sources like banks tend to shy away
from sectors that seem unfamiliar or
risky. Even with visionary entrepreneurs at the helm, many green businesses never get the chance to prove
themselves.
EcoEnterprises Fund, created in
2000, bridged the gap. The Fund, a
pool of venture capital targeted to the
small but growing green-business sector in Latin America, offered both risk
capital and business advisory services
to small- to medium-scale enterprises
in ecotourism, sustainable agriculture, apiculture, sustainable forestry,
and non-timber forest products. Seed
money was raised from the Multilateral Investment Fund, The Nature
Conservancy, Corporación Andina de
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