Fastbeetle- a conflict geography, the curious case of missing impact investors, and the purity of intent to pull off an 'im-possible'

It is heartening to see FastBeetle winning in Shark Tank and their endorsement in mainstream media, finally.

There has been a huge amount of work and maneuvering for many years to make this moment happen for the mainstream audience. At the same time it is equally significant to talk about the importance of diversity, equality and justice in the investment landscape across South Asia. Most of the investors and startups come from homogenous community groups and geographies. Same is true for the Shark Tank India ‘sharks’ lack diversity in ethnic and religious representation. The bias and discrimination associated with the lack of diversity is quite common in the investing world- but no one wants to talk about it in a meaningful way. Just see the background of the top investors and unicorns founder, or try identifying impact investors and their investee profiles from the lens of religion, local people or ethnic diversity. We glorify impact investing but it is generally one sided so far. We talk too much about ESG and SDGs, but it is for making glossy report, and a tool to satisfy Limited Partners to raise money for the fund. Diversity, local representation, religious representation and equality should be a norm but in South Asia and especially in India, it is a elitism in a subtle manner and it gets magnified if you are from frontier markets.

Anyway, let's talk about the moment of positive spirits, energies and moments.?

Almost 4 years ago, August 5, 2019, to be precise, I was on a red-eye flight from Leh to Srinagar via Delhi to meet and address ~120 promising local entrepreneurs, and members of local startup institutions.? I was in for a series of roadblocks…

By the time I’d landed at Delhi, things had changed, and with the abrogation of article 370, my flight to Srinagar stood cancelled . Access to J&K for the rest of India was revoked and internally, with a statewide internet shutdown (the world's longest internet shutdown in a democracy) there was a fraught silence from these Kashmiri enterprises for many months with uncertainty facing their very existence.

This was not normal, and I longed to go back as soon as possible though most of the people around me felt I’d gone crazy. I made the trip again in March 2020 almost ~8 months later as one of the first professionals to travel after the abrogation of article 370, I met many startups and out of them chose one to explore working with- FastBeetle . The Founders Sheikh Samiullah (He/His/Him) and Abid Rashid had started testing their idea, and were testing the market. I was particularly blown away by their resilience and determination and the advancement of their technological solution - in spite of an internet shutdown with no end-date in sight, these two entrepreneurs had managed to pivot and grow their logistics business against adversity on the back of basic 2G technology.?Their solution was far ahead of its time due to their local geography knowledge, grassroot work exposure and a great desire to serve for people- their people where there was not a single organized logistics player to connect millions of Microenterprise women and men to the outside world.

It was the seeds of a historic effort - at ALSiSAR IMPACT we decided that something had to be done to balance the scales- towards supporting social enterprises who were building in the backdrop of immense social and political challenges- in regions that had not received risk capital ever. And it was not the first time- we have pulled this kind of impossible in equally daunting geographies quite silently including facilitating the first FDI into a start-up in Manipur, and many other geographies across South Asia.?

We have believed building entreprenurship in such conflict and frontier markets have strong positive effects enabling livelihood creation, community development, and larger stability for the local populations that are destabilized by the conflicts. It was also becoming clear that we had a herculean effort ahead of us to back them with brute force across the initial stages. Kashmir stands at the highest percentage of unemployability in India, and uncertainty, perception all give a false sense of negativity to the side world- the same is the masala of most media coverage as well who barely speak positive about Kasmiri and their immense entrepreneurial acumen.

Then Covid struck in the middle of everything- for Kashmir it was a double setback- first internet shutdown and then the covid onslaught.

Our amazing team worked overtime during the covid pandemic. There was nothing we could have outsourced feasibly - so we took a broad stance and built a novel partnership with Fastbeetle advising and executing on everything and our team doubled down - from the roadblock of getting their trademark registered to structuring, banking, legal, financial modelling, accounting, personnel management, investment narrative building, advising on how they could begin conversing with investors, initial catalytic capital investment…all this was an expansive project done by our team, while cementing our positive intent and participation the founders Sami and Abid, with an unquestioned support.

The first important thing we did was how strategically Fastbeetle was structured legally to ensure a fine balance between Kashmir, its uncertainty including internet shutdowns and future institutional investor round . We opened our ‘Rolodex’ leveraging personal contacts at the senior-most level in a leading private bank to get an account opened in the Mumbai branch with the focus to be operable anywhere- including Srinagar. It took a long 6 months to get the Company up and running inspite of everyone’s best efforts. The incorporation happened on October 28, 2020. It took another two long months to get the bank account opened up inspite of the multiple push from our best team members.??

We then went ahead working with the founders on refining their narrative - making key business and positioning changes, reframing their initial ‘courier business’ to them as enablers for ‘last mile delivery’ across the growing Kashmiri ecosystem.?

In middle of all of this we set the founders in the key segments- academia and corporate (through first of its kind Conflict zone entrepreneurship summit) and SOCAP, San Francisco (they were social enterprise winner but due to covid travel restrictions were not able to go.). The session with Professor Satyajit Majumdar in early Yr 2020 is worth listening which we at ALSiSAR IMPACT organized on' Entrepreneurs working in Conflict Zones ' supported by SBI Foundation where Abid said- we are child of conflict, we do not get surprised with uncertainty, negativity...we try to navigate in the minimalistic resources and support we have. We cannot afford to be normal for that is a luxury.

Our team also engaged in long drawn strategic market research and the results were stunning - Kashmir had an economy of ~USD 100 Bn and logistics comprised ~3-4 % ( USD ~4 Bn opportunity) - a large market with no significant organized competition. It was our belief that we had a high potential opportunity and that the larger community would reflect that opinion. Also, our own track record of being the leading catalyst of impact investing capital in South Asia for more than a decade.?

As a strategy and supporting Fastbeetle’s preparation for the larger stage to mainstream, it was important to get a diverse pool of investors. We were in for another roadblock- I went to many many investor friends of mine and almost all refused. We had lots of tough calls with prospective investors

In one of the many calls- feeling weary about the sentiment I was up against, I was perhaps too blunt in stating that - “if it was not Kashmir, you may have not questioned anything but here you are too negative”. And a simple social media message by one of the founders simply questioning the security personnels stopping their delivery staff almost made all the agreed investors back out, only to get them back on our personal assurance.?

We all went from one iteration to another and one idea to another and at this moment want to say that it is the resilience and hard work of the founders Sheikh Samiullah (He/His/Him) and Abid Rashid anything we did at ALSiSAR Impact felt great.?The mutual respect only amplified the trust that takes a long time to forge.

When we all look back, it was quite a crazy thing we all pulled off. From starting the entity (post bank account) in Dec 2020 to getting the two rounds in Yr 2021 and then the shark tank, Fastbeetle has proved like a 'Lighthouse' of inspiration and positive hope to countless Kashmiris. At the same time it gave initial investors far above market financial returns with tons of positive social returns as a bonus including 110 local jobs created by Fastbeetle directly and ~800 indirect support roles.

As we embark on the shark tank show, let us also talk about the need for diversity of both religion and ethnicity and the tolerance of our society towards catalyzing entrepreneurs from frontier markets, from conflict zones. For South Asia to develop, for India to develop, we need to learn tolerance, respect and above all giving equal chance for people to grow. And this is where Impact investors lost the plot in South Asia and India in particular- none of them ever tried supporting entrepreneurs in these geographies. Hope it changes for good. Hope the support for Kashmiri entrepreneurs is not an exception but a new normal purely on their potential- which we at ALSiSAR IMPACT have believed and backed with pure intent from Day zero. This is what is in our place-based investing thesis is -it gives a different kind of market dominance - regional, resilience and real. Local founder from the region are inspiring local communities like a ‘ lighthouse’ in that region which gives them an 'edge' and faster sustainability and path towards profitability -for this is more than a startup for them..it is their everything, sometimes more than life.

Our team at ALSiSAR IMPACT & our portfolio diversity is a rarity with respect to traditional investor/entrepreneur profiles. We are proud to count representation from Minorities, Dalits and indigenous tribes coming from small towns who resonate with frontier market incubation as their own dream & achievement. Without our team (both present & past) we could not be what we are today.

Our team came from varied corners of South Asia including but not limited to Maharashtra, West Bengal, Kashmir, Rajasthan, Bihar, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, United Kingdom comprising of Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and Parsis including some who moved on from ALSiSAR IMPACT for good.

[ALSiSAR Team (present and past 2 year) Saurabh S. Andre Charan Akshay Yadav Tanaz Turel Nidhi Das Naseem Ansari Ankush Sawane Shweta Bhatia Aditya Cherkar Devangi Sharma Lavanya S H Rama Shirwalkar Bijal Shah Nikita Sukhathankar Anvitaa Rastogi Devesh Sharma Gavin Ignatius Pereira Akash Veeralakshmanan Krisha Doshi amit salvi Nawal Kudianiwalla Paurav Vakharia Varnika Saha Neelam Pandita Priya Mishra Aayushi Shah Roshni R. Ashwin Jain Deepak Bhagtani Vaibhavi Deshpande Samriti Godara Smiti Waghela Dev Sharma Yashaswini Nand

Would like to take this opportunity to thank Irtif Lone (Co-Founder KAN), incredible Fastbeetle team, supportive Tata Institute of Social Sciences , senior Professor Satyajit Majumdar , dear friend Kartik Desai , and our team who worked directly, and many more who worked indirectly.

Diverse places our formidable founders, part of ALSiSAR Impact Family with indomitable resilient spirits come from (with local founders) :??NE Origins , Gangtok, Sikkim;?FastBeetle , Srinagar, Kashmir;?NagaEd , Kohima, Nagaland;?Ladakh Basket , Leh;?FIGHTBACKNEPAL , Nepal;??KumaonKhand AIH Pvt Ltd , Almora, Uttrakhand; Agapi, Kabi, North Sikkim;?Farm Prosperity Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Khargon, Indore, Madhya Pradesh;??Airth ?Delhi;?SOLRUF? Aurangabad, Maharashtra;?Siachen Naturals , Siachen valley, Ladakh;?Lieper Books , Srinagar; Gramin Mantra, Ranchi, Jharkhand;?BRIGHTBLU , Mumbai, The Hague;?Languify Devas(Madhya Pradesh); Sunny Ray, Kolkata;?CurAlgia , Bokaro (Jharkhand), Nagpur);??Earth Analytics India , Mumbai/Zurich;?Ladakh Bites , Nubra, Ladakh;?CareMother Aurangabad ; Freshily, Unnao, Uttar Pradesh;?Dev Ethical Sustainable Crafts and Textiles-descatuk ?Dehradun;??ZARIN Srinagar/Bangalore;?Apli ?Mumbai/Bangalore/Jaunpur; NeNepal, Kathmandu, Nepal;?Sajilo Services ?Gangtok, Sikkim;?Canfem ?Delhi #alsisarimpact #impactinvesting #socialentrepreneurship

Zareee zarree mein usi ka noor hai

Jhak khud mein woh na tujhse door hai

Ishq hai usse to sab se ishq kar

Ishq hai usse

To sab se ishq kar

Is ibadat ka yehi dastoor hai

Is mein, us mein, aur us mein hai wohi

Is mein, us mein, aur us mein hai wohi

Yaar mera har taraf bharpur hai.

“Walai love-as waskhai?” (Kashmiri) ~ “Let’s fall in?love”?(English)