The Rising Ventures Series features articles, announcements and profiles of investors and entrepreneurs related to the theme of innovative small and medium businesses (SMEs) in emerging markets that deliver social and/or environmental benefits.  This page contains business feature summaries that link to each of the full profiles.  View the investor section or visit the articles archive.


Rising Ventures


Cassiopeia
The Brazilian company Cassiopeia has turned its "green" philosophy into a competitive edge, tapping into a growing niche of Brazilian eco-conscious consumers by being the only cleaning products company in the country to obtain IBD certification. Read more about this company.

CV PPKT
The Indonesian company PPKT is making money, and empowering local Indonesian communities in the process. Indonesia possesses the second greatest share of the world’s coconut plantations – 31.2 percent. The PPKT team, led by Imam Nurhidayat, is succeeding in bringing about social and economic progress by utilizing these resources with minimal waste. Read more about this company.


In 2001, a group of engineers working on embedded systems design at Cimtrix systems, one of India’s leading manufacturers of machines for the armature winding industry, recognized the energy efficiency problem in India. They formed an independent company called Tribi Embedded Technologies, to focus on developing products for Industrial Automation and appliance control.  Read more about Tribi.



Beijing Shengchang Bioenergy Co. Ltd.
China’s pledge to double its reliance on renewable energy by 2020 has brought a great deal of attention to this key growth sector. Witnessing renewable energy’s potential profitability, Fu Youhong, an experienced entrepreneur with several successful pharmaceutical enterprises, decided to explore opportunities in the bioenergy technology sector. Youhong saw his chance for entry into this lucrative market when new renewable energy growth policies came into effect in 2006, and he soon thereafter formed the Beijing Shengchang Bioenergy company.  Read more about Shengchang Bioenergy.



Liangdu MinYiYuan Trade Co. Ltd.
Much of China’s rural population is migrating to the cities in order to earn better income as low-skilled laborers, but many (especially women and children) are often left behind in the countryside with little means to earn sustainable income. Against this backdrop, Cai Tingfen saw an opportunity for sustainable growth and poverty alleviation in the handicraft skills of the minority-ethnic population of Liupanshui City (Guizhou Province). In December of 2005, Cai founded Minyiyuan Ltd as a handicraft enterprise that would integrate minority communities in low-income regions into the economy while preserving their folk culture. Read more about MinYiYuan.



Claudio Bastos had plenty of reasons to found his sustainable packaging company, CBPAK, in 2002. He had a strong academic background as an engineer, decades of executive-level experience managing business turnarounds, a unique product and, he adds, a drive to create a business that would leave a better future for his children. “The world is changing,” Claudio explains, “I needed to be involved in a business that takes care of the planet.” He decided to create a company that would meet these criteria while helping to satisfy a vast market demand for biodegradable packaging materials.  Read more about CBPAK.




If developing sustainable toilets does not seem to be the most glamorous venture in China, it is certainly one of the most important – and potentially lucrative. With a projected population of 1.4 billion by 2050, the country is under increasing pressure to find sustainable solutions to waste management and resource use. As Wu Hao, the founder of environmentally-friendly Landwasher toilets, reflects, “Assuming all of our country uses water-flushing toilets, not even the Yangtze River and the Yellow River will be enough.”  Read more about Landwasher.




Ecuador has long been one of the world’s leading exporters of fruits and vegetables. However, agricultural communities have rarely shared in this wealth, and regional biodiversity has suffered from unsustainable cultivation methods. In mid-2005, David Bermeo and two partners – Jonathan Berg and Andres Oleas – broke sharply from history to introduce their own, sustainable model of agricultural export.  Read more about Terrafertil, the enterprise they created to break the mold.



Following their award-winning Oxford study on sustainable bio-fuel production in India, Sagun Saxena and Shashank Verma decided to put their research into action by forming CleanStar Energy. This company transforms previously unproductive land into fields of Jatropha and Karanj trees which yield oilseeds that produce a commercially-viable and eco-friendly alternative to diesel.  Read the full profile here.



For Fernando Lima, natural care is a family tradition. Fernando’s great-grandfather served as a pharmacist in the Kingdom of Calabria in southern Italy. Years later, the family business migrated to Brazil with his grandfather. Today, Fernando has grown the tradition into a line of all-natural, Amazonian personal care products. After earning a MBA from Universidade de São Paulo and a PhD in International Economics from Universidad de Barcelona, Fernando worked at Citibank and other global banking firms for over ten years. In 2000, he created a company of his own – Florestas.  Read the full profile here.




In 2002, an adventurous professor from the University of Sao Paulo and his wife moved to the rural southern region of the Amazon. They took with them little more than seed financing from the Brazilian government and a dream of helping to reverse the resource extraction practices that threatened the rainforests. Five years later, Luiz Fernando Laranja da Fonseca is the director of a company that has helped to revitalize the declining Brazil nut industry of Mato Grosso in a way that protects the valuable regional ecosystem services and generates income for local farmers.  Read the full profile to learn more about Ouro Verde.




With domestic Indian travel climbing at 25 percent annually and foreign tourism on the rise, Indian eco-tourism company, Eco-Mantra, has come a long way from the days when obtaining a simple bank loan was extremely difficult.  The company's founders, Ravi Goel and Marukh Bulsara, have brought in clients from major firms including Citigroup and HSBC, teaching them the values of sustainable living while supporting local communities with employment and local investment.  Read the full profile to learn more about this leading Indian eco-tourism enterprise.



With plastic cutlery sales growing by 20 to 30 percent every year, the founder of BK Environmental Innovations recognized both a serious environmental challenge in the for of unnecessary waste, and a market opportunity to create a viable substitute: edible cutlery.  In addition to the benefits of creating sustainable spoons and chopsticks, BK's products are helping to revitalize the declining Jowar crop industry and offering a nutritious snack as the Jowar utensils are an important source of folic acid and fiber.  Read the full profile to learn more about how the founders of BK are rethinking the way people eat.



Suminter India Organics was founded on the philosophy that fair, transparent business practices and high-quality products would provide part of a blended value business model that would generate benefits for local farmers while penetrating a significant and growing market for organic goods.  Suminter is utilizing this model to establish itself as a leader in organic Indian products, supporting 600 farmers in five villages by commercializing their output in a $31 billion annual global organics market.  Read the full profile to learn more about how Suminter uses the principles of "Satva" the Sanskrit word for purity, to create a better way of doing business.




Conserve HRP caters to the "fashion with a conscience" crowd by marketing chic hand-made accessories crafted from recycled materials.  Conserve employs 300 under-served laborers, mostly women, who acquire the disposed materials and create bags and belts that are sold in stores internationally.  Read the full profile to learn more about how this remarkable Indian enterprise is making sustainability values fashionable while generating the revenue it needs to achieve scale.



The idea for Electrocell began with a casual conversation between Gerhard Ett and Gilberto Janolio in the coffee lounge of Sao Paulo Uniersity's CIETEC department.  The two realized that they each had worked with fuel cell technology and that they had the technical backgrounds to manufacture the necessary equipment.  From this chance encounter, the two brought their respective engineering teams together to create what would later become a Latin-American fuel cell leader.  Today, Electrocell is ready to help launch the hydrogen economy in Brazil.  Learn more about Electrocell's clean, efficient energy production technology by reading the full profile.




The concept behind DESI Power is simple - give rural Indian villagers access to cheap energy via efficient biomass generators while simultaneously providing a revenue stream to support the operation of those generators.  Yet this basic model has had profound impact in Baharbhari, a pilot village for DESI Power where residents who have long been overlooked by the national government now have dependable access to water and a power source for appliances.  Get the full story behind this BOP/Green business model with enormous potential here.




Hering Instruments is a small business with more than just profit margins and balance sheets on its agenda, but a industry-wide world changing vision.  This profile highlights the current campaign of Hering CEO Alberto Bertolazzi to make sustainably crafted instruments as mainstream as the hybrid car.  Read about how Hering is making FSC certified wood as cool as iconic as Gilberto Gil here.






Natura Fibretech takes a material that has been commonplace among the base of India's economic pyramid and popularizes it for mass consumption.  Coirply is the abundant, sustainably harvested wood that the entrepreneurs behind Natura believe will propel the company to occupy strong shares of the housing and construction markets in India.  By marketing this environmentally responsible, affordable and durable wood alternative, Natura is bringing a BoP technology to the top of the pyramid.  Read more about Natura here.





Growing up, the children called Javier Barragan "naturaleza" because of his affinity for the outdoors.  This lover of nature grew to be a tenacious businessman with an unwavering vision for an aquaculture company with mutually reinforcing social, environmental and economic goals: BioCentinela.  After an epidemic wiped out shrimp stocks throughout Ecuador, Javier had his chance to convert to organic production.  Today BioCentinela is an organic certified and soon to be fairtrade certified shrimp producer with a projected exponential growth rate over the next several years.  Read more about BioCentinela by viewing the full profile.




Beijing Shenwu Thermal Energy Technologies is a company representative of larger trends in China.  The national economy, driven largely by a burgeoning industrial sector, continues to expand at a fast pace while the government searches out new innovations to channel that economic activity into sustainable growth and advanced technologies.  Shenwu is a paragon of this new wave of Chinese businesses - the company manufactures ultra-efficient, low-emission combustion technology for industrial purposes.  Learn why the company has received accolades at home and abroad by reading the full profile.




Much is made of the notion that emerging economies can "leapfrog" the developed world by appropriating and repurposing existing technology to create better products and processes.  Sumaya HMX is a company that not only believes in this possibility but has made this a key component of its business model.  The company manufactures climate control units that are more efficient than traditional air conditioners and are specifically designed for use in tropical, developing country offices and facilities.  Learn more about this Indian businesses clean tech solutions by reading the full profile.




China's booming industry is an economic juggernaut, pushing national growth to new heights.  Yet the country's steel plants, auto factories and other industrial facilities are incredibly inefficient, accounting for much of China's energy consumption, which comprises 58 percent of the total energy consumption in the East Asian Region.  The founders of WorldWell harness the massive amounts of excess energy released by these facilities in the form of heat, turning unused resources into a source of stable profits.  Learn the full story behind WorldWell's unique solution here.



Worldwide, farmers are faced with strong incentives to practice unsustainable agricultural techniques that boost crop productivity in the short term while actually damaging fertile land in the long run.  ABT Bioproducts was formed by two entrepreneurs with experience in the field of molecular biology who created a range of agricultural products designed to maintain crop productivity while reducing the need for excessive chemical fertilizer and water usage.  Learn how this business is changing the face of Indian agriculture by reading the full profile.


A Gram Mooligai Co. Ltd. Subsidiary
Gram Mooligai and its Village Herbs label were created to help grant access to quality healthcare for India's rural poor who are either not reached by public programs or cannot afford private services.  This innovative NGO offshoot relies on a network of 300 women health practitioners to reach untapped consumers who spend around $50 a year on health services.  The company gains the trust of its clients by offering herbal remedies following India's strong heritage of traditional healing.  It also benefits from India's rich biodiversity by sustainably harvesting medicines from native plant species.  Learn more about how GMCL has reached over 30,000 households by reading the full profile.





When Blair and Benjamin Ripple traveled to Indonesia in 1997, they sought to learn more about the rich agricultural heritage of the country's rural farmers.  What they found was widespread practice of two heavily flawed systems.  One in which traditional producers were finding serious difficulty working in a market economy and another where small-scale farmers had taken on ill-suited, large-scale agricultural techniques that damaged the environment and local community.  Read the profile to learn about how these two organic farmers founded a company that found a market opportunity in combining the best practices of both systems.






The food reprocessing efforts of Cuadritos Biotek stem from a genuine desire on behalf of the company's director, Hector Gonzales, to find a durable solution for widespread hunger in Mexico.  Knowing that proper nutrition would be the first step out of poverty for the country's 26 million poor, Hector set out to make use of the 17,000 tons of food Mexicans wate every day.  Learn about about how this innovative entrepreneur found a way to feed 93,000 on a daily basis while launching a major food recycling initiative by reading the full profile.





Several years ago, three ecological disasters involving agro-chemicals struck Jorge Berni's hometown, convincing him to apply his training in chemical engineering to invent a safe, superior alternative to pesticides.  Bug Balancer, as the product came to be known, gained instant recognition in the agricultural community of Los Mochis, Mexico as word spread among farmers that Berni's crops were surviving pest invasions that had destroyed others.  Learn more about how Berni Labs is changing the lives of farmers nationwide.



Mexico-based EcoCreto produces, commercializes, and installs an additive for concrete that renders it 100% permeable. The environmental impact of EcoCreto is its permeability, allowing water to flow to underlying aquifers, which in Mexico City are depleting at an alarming rate.  In 2000, the company received National Prize of Ecology of the Year in Mexico.  Learn more about how EcoCreto impacts one of the region's major environmental challenges by reading the full profile.





Óxil Reciclagem de Plásticos recovers plastic material (PE and PP) and recycles it into granulated plastic which is in turn re-sold to the plastics industry to be made into products such as bottles, toys, and utensils.  The company taps into the growing market for recycled plastics while offering an environmentally and socially responsible business model.  To learn more, read the full profile.



Tramppo combines conservation with profits by offering a safe disposal service for light bulbs.  The company sells replacement bulbs to its clients and sells the usable components of the used bulb before disposing of the rest in the most sustainable manner possible.   Learn more by reading the Rising Ventures profile here.



Lotus Quimica Ambiental Ltd. is dedicated to developing and commercializing technologies that facilitate the preservation of natural resources.  The company manufactures a chemical that reduces evaporation and can thereby diminish water loss in lakes, dams and reservoirs.  Learn more about how the company is working to solve Brazil's water shortage issues by reading the full New Ventures profile here.



Linax Essential Oils sustainably produces phytochemicals such as linalol, which is commonly found in perfumes and scented oils.  As plants that produce these chemicals are harvested to near extinction, Linax offers an alternative method of processing that relies on renewable sources.  This not only helps to protect Brazil's natural resources, it gives the company a competitive edge in the $14 billion a year fragrance market.  Learn more about Linax by reading the New Ventures profile here.



EnerSud Ind e Soluções Energéticas provides micro-wind generators that produce 250 -1000 watts for home energy use with installations already existing in 14 states. The company is also piloting a wind generator that powers water pumps.  Enersud's products are not only environmentally sustainable, they also have the potential to deliver access to energy for Brazil's rural population.  To learn more, see the profile here.



Jiangyou Xun Pai Organic Agriculture Co.

This China-based company utilizes innovative organic processes to produce high quality agriculture products. The company specializes in organic roses, which are in demand by companies around the world, but are in short supply. The high quality of Xun Pai roses in this niche market have led to substantial international interest, as it is negotiating to become a supplier for Chinese and European businesses.  To learn more about this enterprise, see the full Rising Ventures feature.






Yunnan Zhenghong was founded to address one of the major energy challenges in rural China; reliance on inefficient and environmentally damaging fuel sources. Yunnan manufactures ovens that replace the traditional wood and straw burning stoves currently used by many households with ones that incorporate natural gas technology for more efficient and cleaner operation.  Read about the companies latest activities in the full feature here.

This Brazilian enterprise is seeking to change the fashion industry by selling sustainable materials to top designers.  AmazonLife's patented Treetap material is made using rubber native to the region and it uses a fairtrade system to ensure its suppliers receive a living wage.  Learn more about the company's strong prospects and sustainable model here. 

When prices for conventional shrimp dropped sharply and it became clear that traditional aquaculture was increasingly damaging the environment, Alexandre Wainberg had a choice to make.  He could either let his shrimp farming company go out of business or he could shift entirely to organic production.  Learn more about how Alexandre's decision to save Primar could change the industry here.

DryWash uses products made from a native Brazilian wax to effectively clean cars without the use of water and without harmful chemicals.  The company's emphasis on professionalism and quality have made it an important alternative to the informal operations dominating the car wash industry in the region.  Learn more about the impressive growth and success of DryWash here.

With rising gas prices and trends toward higher fuel efficiency standards worldwide, Andre Neumann, Director of International Business, thinks the market for hybrid buses should be growing a lot faster.  In a recent interview, he discusses how Eletra plans to revolutionize the industry with a more efficient and cost effective vehicle.

When Hector Bonilla and Javier Diaz Calvo started their first Teak plantation, they knew they were entering an industry rife with inefficiency and plagued by ecologically harmful practices.  Find out how their enterprise, Proteak, is raising the bar in sustainable forestry.

Rainforest Expeditions puts the natural beauty of the Amazons on display for travelers from around the world.  Learn more about how RFE is making sure its products will be marketable for the next generation of tourists.

Vehizero co-founder Sean O'Hea talks to New Ventures about how the secret to solving Mexico City's pollution problem has arrived; and investors are listening.  See more about the next generation in hybrid technology.

Richard Trubey believes he can revolutionize coffee production in Latin America.  In an interview with New Ventures, Solar Trade Corporation's Vice President and Marketing Manager discusses how his business plans to lead the charge.

In a recent interview, Sustenta Soluciones co-founder Santiago Lobeira tells New Ventures why "marketing with a cause" will be the next major trend in advertising.

Pablo Muñozledo thinks Mexico's greatest resource is also its best-kept secret.  Learn how Aires de Campo is tapping into profits from the fourth most biologically diverse region in the world.