Dondi Hananto, Indonesia representative of Patamar Capital, which is partnering with Investing in Women, said his group has been increasingly engaged in discussions about how to incorporate gender-lens investments into practice.

“These are earlier stage investments than what we are used to,” Hananto said. “A lot of women are starting businesses and our thesis is that there are little barriers to starting a business, but how women [in these countries] scale up is the issue. This is what we are trying to solve.”

For Patamar this means directing investments of around $200,000 and 300,000 to those women entrepreneurs who are at the point of scaling up, and finding mentors to help build the capacity of those that may not exactly be ready to jump to the next level.

“There are lot of really good businesses that may not be ready to receive investments, so our goal is to get them investment ready,” Hananto said. “This is not about being politically correct. From a business point of view it is the right thing to do.

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