Venturing into Embedded Fintech

Amee Parbhoo is a Managing Partner at Accion Venture Lab (AVL), which is a part of Accion International. She has worked with AVL for almost 8 years. Accion International has been working in financial inclusion around the world for over 60 years, and believes that digital financial services are powerful tools to help reduce poverty and create economic opportunity. Edited excerpts from a free-flowing interview:

Manoj Agrawal; A brief about Accion Venture Lab please.

Amee Parbhoo: We focus on the 2 billion individuals around the world who are left out of, or poorly served, by the financial sector. We work toward that mission by investing in and supporting early-stage fintech companies. We have been investing for over 10 years now and made over 60 investments in startups that operate in 39 countries, bringing innovative and responsible financial services to consumers and small businesses around the world.

Which countries/continents are you looking forward to getting into?

Our investments are fairly evenly split across South East Asia, Africa, Latin America, and a little bit in the United States. The markets that we invest in typically have a strong entrepreneurial ecosystem and a strong regulatory environment. The majority of our portfolio is spread across Indonesia, India, Kenya, Nigeria, Mexico, Brazil, and the United States. We are increasingly looking at other markets. We've made investments in Colombia, in Pakistan, in the Philippines and South Africa. These are the new markets we're really excited to explore. We've been spending a lot of time over the last year understanding Bangladesh, what's happening there, what the entrepreneurs are working on and are excited by the new innovations coming from there. We are also exploring a few companies in Vietnam for expansion. Similarly, in Pakistan, we've made a few investments and expect to do more there as well.

You mentioned that the focus is on fintechs. Now, fintechs are in a variety of spaces. Are you focused mainly on credit or other areas as well?