C Ventures Joins IFC's 'We Fund Climate' Program to Boost Sustainable Investments in Southeast Asia

• AC Ventures (ACV), a Southeast Asia-based investment company, has aligned with the We Fund Climate initiative of the International Finance Corporation (IFC)
• The collaboration focuses on mainstreaming gender equality in climate investment strategies

AC Ventures (ACV), a Southeast Asian investment company, has joined the International Finance Corporation's (IFC) We Fund Climate program. The move is intended to integrate gender equality into climate investing by co-creating a Gender Smart Climate Commitment and Action Plan.

Under this initiative, ACV will participate in expert clinics and peer learning workshops aimed at including gender-sensitive practices in its investment procedures. This action is in line with studies that indicate female-founded startups tend to accumulate higher revenues in the long run despite lower capital compared to their male counterparts.
The We Fund Climate initiative, run by Value for Women on behalf of IFC, aims to solve the differences in access to capital for climate solutions led by women. Keeping in view the same objective, ACV has already invested in startup companies like Accacia, Xurya, Waste4Change, and Koltiva.

Even though they are provided less than half the capital of male-founded companies, female-founded companies bring in 78 cents on the dollar spent compared to just 31 cents for male-founded companies. ACV's gender-smart investment commitment can also be seen in its 40% women-founded portfolio. This diversified portfolio strategy isn't simply a diversity mandate but rather a strategic investment approach that seeks better returns.

Studies of more than 700 funds reveal that investment teams with a gender balance outperform single-gender teams by 10-20 percent. The pattern of outperformance is long-term, and women-led businesses earn 10 percent more in revenue over five years than men-led businesses. These results make gender-smart climate investing particularly compelling, marrying the established advantages of gender diversity and climate solutions.

Yet, female entrepreneurs still operate with systemic biases that restrict access to capital. During the first half of 2023, women-founded companies saw just 3.5 percent of equity investment, as compared to male-founded companies receiving 85 percent. These differences aren't a matter of business quality but rather represent investor biases.

Female founders most commonly report that they were informed they would bring in more funding if they were men, and only 8.6 percent of venture capital investors are female, which compounds a lack of diversity in decision-making. Bias is also pervasive in the process of investment itself, with female entrepreneurs being put under more aggressive questioning during pitch sessions.

By partnering with the IFC's We Fund Climate program, AC Ventures is looking to overcome these system-level limitations by infusing gender equity into its investment process. The crossroads of gender equity and climate action is becoming an attractive investment prospect with 61% of investment funds reported as pursuing climate-responsive industries to the tune of $5.8 billion in gender-smart capital.