The impact of impact metrics

By Timothy Motte

The Realistic Optimist is a paid newsletter covering the globalized startup scene.

About the author of this piece

Timothy Motte is the founder of The Realistic Optimist.

The context

The Realistic Optimist is a publication covering the global startup scene. Most of the world’s population lives in emerging markets (EM). So the Realistic Optimist covers a lot of EM startups. When covering them, the same topic invariably comes up: development finance institutions (DFIs). 

DFIs are development banks. They fund development projects. They can be bilateral and attached to a single government (France’s AFD, US’s USAID, Germany’s GIZ) or multilateral and attached to multiple governments (World Bank, IFC). 

I already wrote about how DFIs have shifted to a more private-sector approach, addressing the dependencies they were accused of creating. This shift coincided with the rise of tech startups in their markets of interest. They hopped on the bandwagon.