Social impact is easy to pitch and hard to prove: 17 SEA startups taking the harder route

What happened

Social impact is easy to pitch and hard to prove: 17 SEA startups taking the harder route, according to e27. “Social impact” is one of the most overused phrases in a Southeast Asian pitch deck. Founders apply the label to themselves, and in a funding winter it gets stretched to cover almost anything with a farmer, a recycling bin or an “underserved” customer in the slide.

Also Read: Why financial inclusion requires more than access Seventeen made the cut, across seven countries. One pattern stands out: most of them live in agriculture, fisheries and waste, sectors where impact can be measured in kilograms, hectares and rupiah rather than in adjectives.

Another pattern is the shadow over the sector. Indonesia’s eFishery scandal has made investors far more sceptical of impact claims, and several companies on this list have been through layoffs, controversies or long quiet spells of their own.

Key facts

• Also Read: Why financial inclusion — requires: more than access Seventeen made the cut, across seven countries