GIIRS (stands for Global Impact Investing Rating System, pronounced “gears”). Impact Ratings provide a comprehensive, comparable, and third-party verified assessment of companies’ and funds’ social and environmental impact. In order to be rated, Movirtu completed a rigorous assessment evaluating the company’s impacts on governance, workers, community, environment and its core business model. Before a rating is issued, all data is reviewed and verified by a third party.
GIIRS Ratings & Analytics was launched in September at the Clinton Global Initiative, following a successful global beta test with the first 25 GIIRS Pioneer Funds (http://www.giirs.org/for-funds/pioneer).
By December 2011, 25 Pioneer Funds and nearly 200 Pioneer Companies will have completed the rigorous GIIRS Ratings process and in doing so set themselves apart as bold leaders in the impact investing field, embracing common performance standards, increased transparency and accountability, and comprehensive impact assessment.
Movirtu, as an investee of Gray Ghost Ventures and Grassroots Business Fund, recognizes that scaling the impact investing industry requires improved capital markets infrastructure, including generally accepted standards for defining, measuring, and comparing positive social and environmental impact.
Nigel Waller, Founder and CEO of Movirtu, commented: “Movirtu’s investors believe in the triple bottom line of social and economic accountability, rigorous measurement and constant learning to ensure our impact is as significant and positive as possible. We are delighted with our five-star GIIRS rating and look forward to maintaining this status going forward.”
Andrew Kassoy, co-founder with Jay Coen Gilbert and Bart Houlahan of B Lab, the non-profit organization developing GIIRS, commented: “By providing greater market transparency, GIIRS will help to unlock hundreds of billions of dollars of sidelined investment capital to flow to the world’s most innovative entrepreneurs, who are addressing social and environmental challenges using the power of business.”
About B Lab and GIIRS
B Lab is a US-based nonprofit dedicated to building a new sector of the economy that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. In pursuit of this vision, B Lab focuses on (i) developing the Global Impact Investing Rating System (GIIRS), a rating system that links private investment capital with for-profit social enterprises, (ii) establishing social and environmental performance standards for certifying B Corporations, and (iii) promoting a new corporate form for profit-based companies providing a public benefit. As of September 2011, there are over 450 Certified B Corporations from over 50 industries, representing a diverse multi-billion marketplace. For more information, visit http://www.bcorporation.net.
GIIRS is a comprehensive and transparent system for assessing the social and environmental impact of developed and emerging market companies and funds with a ratings and analytics approach analogous to Morningstar investment rankings and Capital IQ financial analytics. It seeks to spark the impact investment movement by providing a tool that is intended to change investor behavior and unlock the potential of this new asset class. GIIRS Ratings & Analytics will allow entrepreneurs, companies, and fund managers to better serve their customers, workers, and communities by raising capital from mission-aligned investors based on the social and environmental impact of their underlying businesses or portfolio companies. For more information, visit http://www.giirs.org/
About Movirtu
Movirtu is a leading provider of Mobile Identity Management (MIM) solutions to wireless telecommunication service providers. Its award winning Cloud Phone™ software enables mobile operators to offer service to the 1 billion people who earn less than $2 a day, living in rural poor communities in Sub- Saharan Africa and South Asia. Movirtu solutions bring mobile banking and personalized information services to those without a handset or SIM. Demand for Cloud Phone™ applications also extends to the 1 billion people who own more than two SIM cards living in developed markets.
Movirtu is a private company, headquartered in London, UK with offices in Centurion, South Africa and field teams in a number of markets.
Media Contact: Julia Simonova Lopez
Marketing Manager
Movirtu Limited
T: +44 20 7043 1131
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