On the issue of empowerment and consolidation of women in business, there must be two fundamental aspects: generating more leadership spaces for them and getting them to form more impulse networks that help them transmit their expertise.
This is how Karla Gallardo, CEO of Viwala, sees it, a Mexican financier born from the urgency of promoting inclusion and generating social or environmental impact.
Data from the World Bank indicate that among 70% to 90% of the money a woman earns is reinvested in her family in education, health and welfare.
Given this premise and committed to helping reduce the financing gap for women, the private equity firm Viwala has developed credit products that offer up to 60% discount on interest payments to those entrepreneurs who demonstrate the positive impact of their businesses.
Through a model based on the gender approach, Viwala offers tailor-made financing that empowers and understands women. With this awareness, the Mexican firm founded in 2019 seeks to place 30 million dollars by the year 2027 in companies led by women and that operate with socially responsible actions.
Karla Gallardo comments that the financing gap for women’s businesses in Latin America and the Caribbean is 93 billion, according to IDB data. That is why she celebrates the existence of financial products such as Impact Payments.
At Viwala we grant financing solutions that have the effect of closing gaps and expanding diversity in companies. One of them is Pago por Impacto, with which we offer the possibility of discounting up to 60% on credit interest by complying with socially responsible actions.
Karla Gallardo, CEO of Viwala.
Impact investing with a gender approach
The company also helps attract and channel impact investments in order to contribute to social welfare through business loans that break the barrier of ethnicity, gender identity and/or social group.
This purpose is endorsed by its beneficiaries, such as the collective The grey hair, who works in social reintegration; the slow fashion brand, HUA; Grupo Murlota, focused on sustainable community development, among others.
This has been possible thanks to the support of its strategic allies, such as the accelerator New Venturesthe Center for Competitiveness of Mexico (CCMX), ProMujer, as well as the Swiss Confederation and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
With this strength of institutional networks and aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) for the 2030 Agenda of the United Nations (UN), “we also seek to promote criteria of social responsibility in businesswomen through free training in marketing issues, bonds, sales, among others. This after carrying out a diagnosis in which we detected weak points in the businesses of our allies”, Gallardo details.
Among the actions that can reduce the payment of interest on the loan in percentage terms are included from awareness workshops on issues of inclusion and diversity, to actions within the operating structure of companies.
This solution is added to the other two financial products:
- Credit to fixed payments. It is a credit in terms of between 12 and 42 months that, unlike the traditional ones (which focus on first covering interest), this one allows you to pay most of it in capital from the beginning. Payments range from 8,600 pesos per month for amounts from 200,000 to 10 million pesos.
- sales credit or revenue-based lending. It is an instrument widely used by venture capital funds, but adapted to credit. It is for companies with seasonality or that have very fast growth. It allows agreeing payments according to a percentage of sales. “If your company sold a lot, you pay me a lot that month, if it sold zero, you don’t pay me that month,” says Gallardo.
“Women are firm but conciliatory, which is why we work to offer non-traditional financial instruments that are adapted to Small and Medium Enterprises that conventional capital excludes,” says the CEO of Viwala.
Finally, she offers some tips that can help women prop up their businesses:
- Eliminate the unfounded fear that you have to request financing.
- Living in formality, since it is a generator of well-being in the short, medium and long term.
- Take care of the credit history, which is essential to maintain growth opportunities in the business career.
Editorial Team The editorial team of EMPRENDEDOR.com, which for more than 27 years has worked to promote entrepreneurship.