Adventure Finance

The venture capital model doesn’t work—at least not for 99% of startups and small businesses. In this 99% are a lot of companies with incredible potential: businesses headed by female founders and those from diverse racial backgrounds, organizations headquartered outside of venture capital hubs, and purpose-driven enterprises that are creating social and environmental impact alongside financial success.

Counter to what the press-savvy venture capital world would have you believe, there are a lot of funding options out there for startups and small businesses. Adventure Finance is designed to help you understand some of these options, and walk you through real examples of how other founders and funders have put them to use. 

In simple, approachable language, the book breaks down the different types of funding options available from revenue-based financing to recoverable grants to redeemable equity to distributed ownership and more. Through a mix of storytelling and frameworks, based on a decade of research and experience in investing in early-stage companies, this book will give you the ability to determine how each of these structures can contribute to your own funding journey.

The goal for this book is to shift the conversation about startup funding and help founders and funders widen the spectrum of “mainstream” investment options in order to make the venture financing world more inclusive and purpose-driven.

“The world of venture funding has historically been exclusive, not inclusive. While part of the issue has to do with the make-up of venture capital firms, some of the blame lies in the industry's focus on equity funding to the exclusion of all other forms of capital investment. This needs to change. In Adventure Finance, Aunnie masterfully explores how we can broaden our view of financing and create a more inclusive financing economy. Put simply, this is the future of venture finance.”

—Seth Levine, Co-Founder of The Foundry Group

“Aunnie Patton Power details an exceptionally well researched journey through this fast-developing world of visionary investors and entrepreneurs who recognize the power of bringing together profit motives and impact objectives through innovative finance.  This is a critical resource for anyone looking to engage with the new economy, where purpose drives profit and commerce yields true impact potential.”

—Chintan Panchal, Founding Partner, RPCK Rastegar Panchal LLP

“So much of finance’s power in suppression innovation is the intentional opaqueness of its tools. Aunnie uses the power of storytelling to make finance accessible to entrepreneurs and funders and empowers people to think creatively about what models are truly best for their business and their communities.”

—Morgan Simon, Founding Partner at Candide Group; author of Real Impact: The New Economics of Social Change

“It should not come as a surprise that venture capital is usually not the right funding choice for impact entrepreneurs, as venture capital was invented to create unicorns, maximizing financial returns for its limited and general partners without any intentional consideration for positive environmental and / or social impact. Impact entrepreneurs care about just the opposite: creating long lasting positive impact and providing an appropriate financial return to their investors. Similarly, conventional debt is not optimized for impact entrepreneurs either, as many times they don’t have the collateral or the cashflow to get access to or service a conventional debt structure. And grants might be great to get an impact entrepreneur started, but then what? Aunnie Patton Power has written a brilliant guide - particularly, but not only for impact entrepreneurs - to understand the evolving world of impact finance, which goes way beyond the usual equity, debt and grant structures to include vehicles like structured exits, loan guarantees, blended capital and many important variations thereof. This is not a theoretical book. Aunnie brings it to life with inspiring stories of impact pioneers that clearly articulate the many trade-offs and pitfalls of impact finance. A must-read for anybody interested in creating aligned investments between impact entrepreneurs and impact investors.”

—Charly Kleissner, PhD, Co-Founder Toniic and KL Felicitas Foundation; Board Chair, ImpactAssets

“Adventure Finance is a truly brilliant contribution to the impact investing literature and practice community. By deftly weaving together stories with detailed descriptions of financial tools, Adventure Finance offers readers examples of direct financing from practice as well as relevant insights into the funding decision making process. Whether you are looking for capital or deploying capital for impact, Adventure Finance is both an exceptionally useful resource and very enjoyable read.”

—Jed Emerson, Founder of Blended Value Group; author of The Impact Investor; Strategic Fellow at ImpactAssets

“Aunnie has provided founders with the playbook on how to make money work for them and their business. Adventure Finance is an accessible and engaging read for any founder. It sifts through the finance jargon and illustrates through stories, some of the real-world challenges and innovations created from implementing financial solutions in underserved communities. I hope every founder leverages this guide to fully understand their options when it comes to funding their enterprise. As Aunnie has illustrated so artfully, not all money fits every need, but when applied effectively it has the power to transform industries.”

—Ella Peinovich, Founder of Powered by People & Soko

“Someday we'll look back at Venture Capital in much the same way we're starting to see other toxic, extractive industries, like fossil fuels and payday loans. In Adventure Finance, Aunnie provides an accessible roadmap for today's founders, as well as a glimpse of what's possible tomorrow, as investors awaken to the truth of how finance has failed us, and how we can use it to repair instead of destroy. A must-read for any smart investor or founder.”

—Nathalie Molina Niño, Managing Director, Known Holdings; author of LEAPFROG: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs

“Every funder has the opportunity to support start-ups and small businesses, an essential part of resilient development. But to do so effectively requires understanding how best to structure funding to help them reach their potential. In Adventure Finance, Aunnie has created an engaging and approachable "how-to" guide full of actionable insights that will help funders and entrepreneurs build better partnerships through mutual understanding and trust.”

—Antony Bugg-Levine, CEO, NonProfit Finance Fund

“This is a tremendous book that sets a new standard for work on impact finance. The level of technical detail - whilst never overwhelming – provides all players in the market with models and roadmaps to start or accelerate their use of impact finance. The real-world cases, from a variety of countries and sectors, are also very useful as illustrations of impact finance in practice and give meaning to the financial discussions. The book is easy to read and honest in its accounts of the good and bad, successes and failures of this emerging market. This is a must-read for anyone interested in this fascinating topic.”

—Alex Nicholls, University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, UK

“Time and experience have shown us that the Silicon Valley investment model of multiple rounds and exits cannot be shoehorned into emerging markets. As our early stage ecosystems develop, we are evaluating what works and what doesn’t when it comes to investing in and growing start-ups that create economic value and impact for our people. In this book, Aunnie provides practitioners with an insightful guide into new ways of investing in early-stage companies which I commend to all those with a genuine desire for an investment environment that suits us in emerging markets.”

—Tomi Davies, Chief Investment Officer, Greentec Capital Partners and President, African Business Angels Network (ABAN); author of The African Project Manager

“Adventure Finance is a necessary contribution to the swirling debates about capital, impact, and purpose.  Aunnie Patton Power has thought deeply about how finance can tilt towards positive social outcomes and has written a really helpful guide.”

—Stephan Chambers, LSE’s Marshall Institute, UK

“Adventure Finance is an excellent book for finance experts and novices alike. Aunnie's use of original stories to introduce technical financial concepts creates an easy and natural flow to the book. I would highly recommend it.”

—Ludovic Phalippou, University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School, UK; author of Private Equity Laid Bare

“Adventure Finance is exactly the type of book that investors need right now to understand the opportunities, structures, and approaches of innovative, alternative, and blended finance. For gender-smart investors and those structuring new vehicles, this is gold! I highly recommend this book and will consider it one of my bibles for this type of investing. Thank you Aunnie Patton Power for making this so clear and understandable for all.”

—Suzanne Beigel, Founder, Catalyst at Large and Co-Founder, GenderSmart Investing Summit

“Aunnie has done something incredible: condensed the cutting edge techniques for funding social enterprises into a highly readable, accessible and practical guide for investors and entrepreneurs alike. Whether you are a social finance novice or expert, there is material in this book that you will find valuable. Essential reading for any social entrepreneur or impact funder who wants the best ideas on how to raise finance for impact. A tour-de-force.”

—Mark Cheng, Social Finance Director, Ashoka; author of Social Investment Toolkit

Aunnie Patton Power is a university lecturer on Innovative Finance, Impact Investing and Technology for Impact and an advisor on these topics globally. At the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School, she holds the title Associate Fellow as well as Entrepreneur in Residence at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship. She is also Adjunct Faculty at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business and a Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics’ Marshall Institute for Philanthropy and Social Entrepreneurship. She also is a founding member of the Dazzle Angels, a female angel investing group. A reformed M&A investment banker, Aunnie began her impact investing career in 2010 with Unitus Capital in Bangalore and has since worked with start-ups, intermediaries, funds, family offices, foundations, corporates, and governments across Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. Aunnie's work has been published throughout the world, including by the Oxford University Press, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the World Economic Forum, and as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on Coursera and GetSmarter.