Paul Basil (PFM 1992-94) is co-founder & Partner of Menterra, an impact investment fund. He is also the Founder and former CEO of Villgro Innovations Foundation and an Ashoka Fellow. Over the last decade, Paul and Villgro have incubated around 400 social enterprises.
Paul is also the co-founder of Impact Innovators and Entrepreneurs Foundation (IIEF), a US based organization that has the goal of building a global network of impact incubators. Paul has also contributed to building the social enterprise ecosystem in India through Unconvention, India’s leading conference on innovation and social entrepreneurship across many cities in India, Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship at IIT-Madras that focuses on research and education, Villgro fellowship that recruits global mid-career professionals to experience social entrepreneurship and the India Chapter of Aspen Network for Development Entrepreneurs.
Paul was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship in 2002 for his outstanding social entrepreneurship in setting up Villgro. He has also been conferred the Samaj Seva Bhushan Award and the Star Entrepreneur Award.
A mechanical engineer by training and post-graduate in forestry management, Paul lives in Kochi, India with his family.
Q. How has been your journey from IIFM to this role?
A. During my engineering days I realized that engineering is not my passion and I felt that I wanted to do something related to development. I got to know about people who were working in the development space, which inspired me further. Therefore, post my engineering I wanted to do a course in Rural Management from IRMA, but landed up at the interview for IIFM! The journey which commenced from the interview, the walk down the hills (though tiring at the in scorching summer of April and May ?), the car drive down the hill and the discussion with Prof. Jaiswal – was inspiring and convinced me that IIFM would give me a great launchpad into the development space. Added advantage of being in IIFM was that I would not have to spend from my pocket. All these factors led me to choose IIFM.
Once I got into IIFM there has been no looking back in a sense that I was convinced that social impact was my calling and the course will help me in moving into that direction. I did my internship with PRADAN and that allowed me to explore the amazing grassroot work that they were involved in. The second internship, got me to see the donor side through an internship with SIDA Forestry Development Program in Tamilnadu. None of this convinced prospective campus recruiters of my commitment to impact and development. I landed up selected at campus by a leading market research consulting company, who decided not to pursue the offer since my engineering and IIFM background combined, would be a perfect recipe to jump jobs!
Finally, I landed a job with National Tree Growers Cooperative Federation (affiliate of the National Dairy Development Board) now known as FES, an organization involved in waste-land rehabilitation. I was placed in Kolar, a place which borders Kerala, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh. People here spoke Kannada, Telugu, and Tamil, none of which I was fluent in and made grassroots, field work very challenging! I ran away! The next 6 years, I spent with fruits and vegetable farmers in Kerala was fascinating! I did some credit, financing, retail and that gave me a good peak into the world of agribusiness.
One of my IIFM batchmates, Vineet Rai, was running GIAN in Gujarat and they wanted to replicate GIAN in the south of India. Me and Vineet connected and I set up GIAN in the South and that was the birth of today’s www.villgro.org. At Villgro, we have worked with around 400 startups in the social impact space in the domain of agribusiness, health care, education, etc. We were mentoring, providing funding, and were connecting them with partners, who can add value to the business. We further grew Villgro in Africa and Southeast Asia. Currently Villgro is in the US – www.villgro-us.org – as well with the mission of building a global network of impact incubators – to encourage incubators to learn, share and collaborate with each other. Around 2015, we found that many early-stage entrepreneurs lack adequate capital to move from early stages to growth stages. To address this issue, I co-founded www.menterra.com, as a demonstrator, seed stage fund with a corpus of Rs 50 Cr. After a successful first fund, we are now raising a much larger second fund of $100million.
Q. What were some of the key learnings of your journey that you would like to share with us?
A. It is possible to create social impact, social development through an enterprise-based model. I consider AMUL, Arvind Eye Hospitals as pioneers in this space. So are many microfinance organizations. Such models work for the poor, who are 2 rungs up the economic ladder and not the abject poor.
Charity and Philanthropy need to co-exist as the abject poor needs them. Hence, it is critical that we all work together In collaboration to solve problems at the bottom of the pyramid.
Governments have an enabling role to play in promoting entrepreneurship. I can see the change in the ecosystem after 2015 when India’s startup policy was announced. After that, more money, more incubators, more angel funds came in to support startups. Government put together a 10,000 Cr fund of funds.
Q. Have you’re learning at IIFM helped in shaping how you approach your professional roles?
A. IIFM has shaped me tremendously in several ways:
Empathy – The residential program helped me experience people of different states, religions, socio-economic status & aspirations. All of us living together helped me build empathy.
Deep and long lasting relationships – Batchmates and peers have gone above and beyond to support each other in different forms both professional and personal matters. My collaboration with Vineet Rai, Anish Kumar, Jayesh Bhatia and their organizations have led to significant outcomes.
Exposure to grassroots – My entry into the social impact space and exposure to grassroots may not have been possible without the courses and internships at IIFM.
Q. What would be your advice to freshers and IIFM graduates who are exploring social entrepreneurship / working in social enterprise?
A. Get Inspired – The first step would be to read about social entrepreneurship and social enterprises. Today, there are several blogs, books and educational courses on social entrepreneurship.
Immerse yourself – one can do that through internship, fellowships, volunteering, etc. For example, Jagriti Yatra which takes hundreds of students on a train journey and exposes them to social causes and social enterprises is a great way of immersion into development space.
Be an intrapreneur or entrepreneur – you can either be an entrepreneur or pursue an idea as an intrapreneur. No better time that now to be entrepreneur as there are so many incubators, angel funds to support. There are 100s of incubators in the country and in each of these there are 20-30 startups where one can get employment opportunity.
Q. Any suggestions on who you want to get profiled/interviewed here?
A. K Ravichandran (PFM 1992-94), Ramnarayan (PFM 1992-94), Anish Kumar (PFM 1992-94), Pranay Lal (PFM 1992-94), Sandeep Chakravorty (PFM 1989-91).