The Last-Mile Pipeline: How to Unlock Capital for Microentrepreneurs at Scale

Trillions in capital sit on the sidelines, not for lack of will, but for lack of origination. Commercial and impact investors cannot cost-effectively source, structure, or de-risk deals at the last mile. CARE’s RISE platform has built what they cannot: a network of 30 million people, mostly women, in savings groups across 67+ countries, with often digitized transaction histories and embedded technical assistance, constituting investable micro and small entrepreneurs at scale. This session presents RISE as a live proof of concept, unpacks the origination infrastructure model, and equips participants with a replicable framework for positioning community-rooted assets as the missing link in catalytic capital deployment.