The Agora model supports entrepreneurs by targeting four core barriers to new venture creation: entry, education, financing and management expertise. Key components of the model are practices designed to lower transactions costs, leverage partnerships, provide practical advice and business networks, and create mechanisms that allow capital to flow to the small business sector in poor countries.

How we work

Our model is designed to provide or leverage comprehensive and integrated services to help identify, advise, invest and support  entrepreneurs working to build companies that improve their communities.

Identify

Agora searches for and selects entrepreneurial small business that fit our entrepreneur criteria.

Finding entrepreneurs capable of creating development impact requires working closely with strong local partners -- government agencies, trade associations, universities and other development organizations – to cast as wide a net as possible.

A key part of Agora’s strategy to encourage would-be entrepreneurs to launch high impact businesses is to elevate the status of entrepreneurship generally in society. Agora works toward this goal through entrepreneurial education, peer-to-peer networking, and media coverage to celebrate small business entrepreneurs as catalysts of development.  For more information on our work to promote entrepreneurship, see our Social Impact Report 2008.

Advise

Agora works with select companies to help them identify and overcome constraints to growth. This process involves an in-depth discussion of the key value drivers of the business. Agora staff, often working with local and international business school student consultants, seek to answer the question of what is preventing a company from achieving maximum impact in its community.  Student consultants typically work during the school year and travel during breaks to meet the entrepreneurs. Often, the issues confronting the business are strategic in nature and require a refocusing of priorities or a re-assessment of fundamental business assumptions. When the constraint is financing, Agora staff works with the entrepreneur to create an execution plan suitable for investment. Agora also offers seminars and provides extensive one-on-one consulting to help entrepreneurs understand the pros and cons of equity and quasi-equity finance.

Invest

Because consulting alone is often insufficient to achieve growth, Agora strives to provide the right kind of long term, “patient” capital to select entrepreneurs.  Given their extensive interaction during the selection and consulting phases, Agora staff and the entrepreneurs are able to build a relationship with each other based on trust and respect. Agora staff can recommend certain entrepreneurs for investment from an affiliated fund that Agora sponsors and manages.

In addition to investing via the fund, Agora works to develop and implement innovative financing mechanisms and term sheets to help advance the field of micro venture capital. This field, which focused on providing growth capital to small business in poor countries is just now emerging; a collective, global effort is needed to develop it. A 2006 case study on the Agora Fund discusses some of the issues involved in micro venture capital and was given the award for best teaching case study by the Business Association of Latin American Studies (BALAS).

Support

Agora continues to provide strategic guidance and support to businesses receiving investment from the Agora Fund.  This support includes helping entrepreneurs connect with customers, suppliers, professional service providers, and Agora Fellows who provide on-site consulting.  Agora also works to ensure good governance and transparency in all portfolio companies and to encourage Agora entrepreneurs to participate actively in building an entrepreneurial society.

Through support and monitoring services, Agora strives to ensure that the businesses it supports improve their communities by being environmentally responsible and creating value for all stakeholders: investors, employees, customers, and future generations.