The Second Wave: Promoting a Second Decade of Impact Investing in Frontier Markets in Latin America

Impact investing is growing in Latin America. Seventy-eight impact investment firms reported investing into Latin America between 1997-2016. Nearly 80% of these impact investors made their first investment in the region after 2007, with 14-15 new entrants every two years, representing an important first wave of impact investment in the Latin America region, mostly into large market countries. Impact investors in the region have been most active over the past decade in Brazil, Mexico, and, more recently, Colombia². However, Latin America & the Caribbean is a region of small market countries. Twenty nine of the thirty - three countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean have populations of 32M people or less. So what can be done to promote a second wave of impact investing in these markets? This is one question this report aims to answer.