ALIVE Shortlisted for the PRI Awards 2020

We are pleased to announce that ALIVE Ventures has been shortlisted for the PRI Awards 2020 in recognition of our work with portfolio company, Crehana, to expand access to digital education among lower-income populations in Latin America.

The initiative began in 2019, when we partnered with Crehana to identify new ways to increase the social impact of its online learning platform.

Crehana provides affordable, project-based courses that help Spanish-speaking students build creative and digital skills. These courses are designed by industry professionals and aim to improve students’ access to qualified employment opportunities.

An impact assessment found that approximately 10 percent of Crehana’s students were living below the poverty or extreme poverty lines, representing around 200,000 learners. While this demonstrated the platform’s existing reach, we believed there was a significant opportunity to serve many more people facing economic and educational barriers.

Together, ALIVE and Crehana explored three principal routes for expanding access: partnerships with public education authorities, collaborations with companies and nonprofit organisations, and agreements with media businesses serving lower-income audiences.

Developing these partnerships required sustained engagement with external stakeholders. Government collaboration was particularly complex. A typical education agreement with Peru’s Ministry of Education could take between six months and a year to establish.

To navigate this process, we consulted education companies with previous experience working with the government. Their guidance helped us understand the ministry’s priorities, including rapid implementation, scalability and the ability to measure educational outcomes.

By incorporating these considerations into the proposal, ALIVE and Crehana secured an agreement for a pilot programme with the ministry in four months.

The initiative was supported by regular monitoring meetings, market research and direct engagement with government agencies, companies and other potential partners. It reflects our approach to active ownership, in which we work closely with portfolio companies to strengthen both their commercial development and their measurable social impact.

Being shortlisted for the PRI Awards 2020 is an important recognition of this work. More importantly, it reinforces our conviction that impact investors can play an active role in helping companies reach underserved markets, improve access to economic opportunity and develop scalable solutions to persistent social challenges.