How do we make investments for social innovation?
GSMA
The ambition
The GSMA represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide, uniting more than 750 operators with almost 400 companies in the broader mobile ecosystem, including handset and device makers, software companies, equipment providers and internet companies, as well as organisations in adjacent industry sectors.
The GSMA also produces the industry-leading MWC events held annually in Barcelona, Los Angeles and Shanghai, as well as the Mobile 360 Series of regional conferences.
The Mobile for Development (M4D) team drives innovation in digital technology to reduce inequalities in our world. Singularly positioned at the intersection of the mobile ecosystem and the development sector, M4D stimulates digital innovation to deliver both sustainable business and large-scale socio-economic impact for the underserved.
Firetail was commissioned by M4D’s Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) team to conduct a systematic review of final reports from grantees of the Mobile for Development Utilities (M4DU) Innovation Fund and the Ecosystem Accelerator (EA) Innovation Fund. Launched in 2013 and 2016 respectively, they have made grants to over 80 start-ups that have reached 29 million beneficiaries in Sub-Saharan Africa, South- and South-East Asia.
The objective of the review was to analyse grantee reports and consolidate learnings around the innovation funding approach and outcomes.
Our approach
The review aimed to answer four questions:
Is the Innovation Fund approach working?
What were the outcomes of the grants?
Are partnerships working effectively?
What operational lessons have been learned?
Over two cycles, Firetail reviewed over 50 grantee reports and conducted quantitative analysis to generate insights about the grantees, including their ability to get to scale, broker partnerships with MNOs, and reach beneficiaries.
The research was complemented by 30 interviews with staff and grantees to generate in-depth and nuanced insight into the four questions. This research helped us to understand the most valuable and helpful aspects of the funds, as well as insights about key relationships, team capabilities and areas for improvement.
One key learning question was to identify whether a “sweet spot” existed where a particular type of start-up was especially well-suited to the fund, in a way that would catalyse scale and success. These insights helped sharpen the focus of the fund and its proposition.
The impact
Over both cycles, we made a number of recommendations to improve the Innovation Fund’s strategic direction, approach, support to grantees and grantee profiles.
Over the course of our engagement, the team developed new and more cohesive ways to evaluate and measure their investments in these innovative, social impact start-ups.
Together, we identified new measures - both financial and self-reported - that would generate the most useful data to measure impact.
The new GSMA Innovation Fund was launched in April 2020 with clearer grantee communications, earlier and more individualised M&E support, new project risk approaches and more standardised reporting.
The GSMA Innovation Fund for Mobile Internet Adoption and Digital Inclusion was launched in April 2020. It was the first of several rounds of funding, the second has been launched and the third will do so next year.
Insights and further reading:
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