Root Capital — Making Capital and Markets Work for Small-Scale Farmers in Developing Countries
Speaker: William Foote, CEO/Founder, Root Capital.
Small grassroots businesses – such as coffee farmer cooperatives and artisan associations – are engines for sustainable development and poverty alleviation in rural communities in the developing world. Considered too small and risky for mainstream banks and too large for microfinance, these grassroots businesses are caught in the middle as they cannot access the capital they need to grow and sustain their operations. Willy spoke about how Root Capital addresses this market failure through their innovative lending model that serves the needs of these remote grassroots businesses and the challenges they encounter.