Investing in Women and Beacon Fund to help women entrepreneurs

The collaboration between Investing in Women (IW) and the Beacon Fund seeks to bridge the persistent funding gap for women-owned small businesses (WOSBs), providing them with tailored investment structures and strategic support to facilitate growth and attract additional capital.

IW focuses on promoting inclusive and sustainable economic growth by fostering equitable opportunities for women in the private sector across key Southeast Asian countries. Through initiatives like this partnership with Beacon Fund, IW is working to create a more supportive financial ecosystem for WOSBs, ensuring they have better access to the capital they need to thrive.

Founded in 2020, Beacon Fund is dedicated to supporting the 'missing middle' - businesses that are too large for microfinance but too small for private equity, and frequently underserved by traditional banks. As a major player in gender lens investing in Southeast Asia, the fund is pioneering creative financial models tailored to the specific capital needs of WOSBs

Beacon Fund recently announced a significant, multi-million-dollar partnership in April with Lotus Group to expand its food and beverage operations in Vietnam. In late May, Beacon also secured an initial investment agreement with CAS Energy to advance renewable energy projects integrated with circular agriculture, as part of Vietnam’s climate-smart agriculture model.

As part of its broader strategy, Beacon Fund is committed to deploying innovative financing structures that specifically cater to women-led small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). These include revenue-based financing, where repayments are tied to a company’s revenue, and impact-linked loans, which offer reduced interest rates if a business meets predefined social impact targets. These tailored financing solutions are designed to provide the flexibility and capital that women-led enterprises need to grow.

In a June interview with VIR, the fund's co-founder, Shuyin Tang, stressed the importance of adjusting traditional investment models to support Vietnam’s impact-driven businesses.

"There’s tremendous opportunity for investors to back impact-focused enterprises in Vietnam, but this often requires adapting strategies. One of our key innovations is our impact-linked structure, which allows companies to unlock lower-cost capital if they achieve specified impact goals," Tang noted.

She added that this approach has allowed Beacon to access a whole segment of impact-driven businesses previously overlooked by more conventional investors.

Beacon Fund’s leadership has long demonstrated that supporting women-led SMEs unlocks significant economic potential. Beyond providing capital, the fund also offers strategic support to help its portfolio companies scale, entice further investment, and implement long-term impact strategies, including guidance on adopting global standards for impact management and measurement.

IW has identified key barriers such as product mismatch and unconscious gender bias that hinder WOSBs from accessing capital. Through IW’s Innovation Window, fund managers like Beacon are piloting alternative financing structures specifically designed to meet the needs of WOSBs, with a focus on scaling successful models that can be replicated across Southeast Asia.

With funding from IW’s Innovation Window, Beacon Fund will roll out these innovative financing models in Vietnam, offering financial support and hands-on strategic advice to ensure women entrepreneurs can thrive.

Beacon Investment Fund to expand Lotus Group's F&B operations Beacon Investment Fund and Vietnam's Lotus Group on April 15 unveiled a substantial collaboration, committing millions of dollars to bolster the expansion and development of Lotus Group's food and beverages (F&B) arm.

Beacon Fund backs CAS Energy on renewable energy expansion Beacon Fund and CAS Energy reached an initial investment agreement in April to advance renewable energy projects integrated with circular agriculture under the climate-smart agriculture model in Vietnam.

Impact investing goes a step further for positive gains Impact investing is at a nascent stage in Vietnam, but there have been some new developments in the space recently. Shuyin Tang, co-founder of the Beacon Fund, spoke with VIR’s Thanh Van about Vietnam’s impact investing landscape.