Very interesting. Do you think they would be willing to work with TEN in funding some of the partners we are trying to set up in Africa?

John my understanding is that they will pilot the platform with businesses in Uganda and a closed number (2,000-3,000) of community participants this year. If any of your partners are in Uganda there may well be ways LiA can help. Alternatively it might be an idea to sign on as an investor (ie part of a <ned> investor group, perhaps?) in the pilot phase so that you get the lay of the land on how it all works. By the time they scale to include businesses in other African countries, you will know what to do.

I think there is somewhere on their website to sign up for the pilot. Otherwise, we'll hopefully get some specific input on how to get involved at this stage if/when the guys I met yesterday accept my invitation to post here.

There's a picture of Christina and Grace! :-) http://c4-world.com/2007/03/14/w isdom-of-crowds/

Christina, thank you for posting about C4... we very much appreciate the way you "handle" this!

I will be more than happy to extend on what C4 is here and now but as you know the team is in Uganda with a calendar that is packed back to back....

I will commit myself to write a post here tomorrow about C4!!

I would though just like to explain why we have chosen to start our global model in Africa (Uganda); It is here the biggest gap in achieving the eight UN Millennium Development Goals exists... or flip it up side down and look upon it to be the continent with the most opportunities >> "When you see a problem, you see a business"!

So if any of you have business opportunities that we should look closer into, the team is around till Saturday - so please contact us via tim@c4-world.com

John Berger said:

Very interesting. Do you think they would be willing to work with TEN in funding some of the partners we are trying to set up in Africa?

Hi John, I just joined your group and the Onet Community and is founded C4 with Tim last year. Curious to know what TEN is??? Maybe its something we can help with... We love sharing and growing new ideas to action.

Christina Jordan said:

Since it was John Berger who pointed me to these guys, Mark Grimes was one of the first people I knew I needed to connect them to, and Second Life/Better World Island came also up in our discussion, it seems like the Food Chain group could be the best place to introduce the team from http://C4-world.com to the Onet community.

Grace and I spent a couple of hours yesterday with Christian Frederickson and his colleague Lau who are part of a 12 member team currently in Uganda getting ready for a C4 pilot in Uganda to launch in May.

C4 is pursuing a 2 pronged approach to eradicating extreme poverty (in Africa first) through business.

1. an online platform will bring communities of investors together to bid (in prosper.com style) on profit making investments in African businesses. Competencies, in-kind investments, community connections and cash can all be a part of the $1,000-$20,000 investment packages made available by C4 investor groups to African businesses who seek invesements through the community platform.
2. in parallel to providing a platform for online community group investments, C4 will also operate a profit making pension plan that invests on a large scale in a broad portfolio successful African businesses.

I hope Christian, Lau and/or others from their team will be able to join us here soon with a better explanation than I have mustered. Meanwhile, I'm told yesterday's visit to Life in Africa will be making an appearance on the blog at their website later today.

Interested to see what this group makes of the C4 concepts, and excited to see what happens upon launch!

http://C4-world.com

Hi Christina,

Hope we can have a glass of water and meet the next time I will be in Kampala.

Christian was absolutely over the moon y'day after his second visit to you and following a meeting with a fantastic lady in the fishing industry. When we had our 1800 orientation meeting he said its been the second best day of his life... only the birth of his daughter Laura beats the people and experience he meet y'day! Wauww.

Tim will revert on MyC4 and I will try share some light on the funds we are setting up at the moment and expect to have signed in 4ths quarter this year.

C4-world will raise two funds for a minimum of USD 100 million from Danish pension funds and to invest directly and via fund-of-funds in microfinance and private equity opportunities, only in Africa.

FundOne - a USD 50 million commercial microfinance fund. The investment of this fund, called FundOne, will include a combination of investments in other Africa-specific commercial microfinance funds, direct investments in African microfinance institutions, and end-borrower microfinance investments through MyC4.

FundTwo - a USD 50 million private equity fund. The investments of this fund, called FundTwo, will include a combination of investments in other Africa-specific private equity funds and direct investments in African businesses identified through a combination of on-the-ground research, and through intelligence from MyC4.

Investment policy - In considering investments for both the microfinance fund, FundOne, and the private equity fund, FundTwo, the C4 Fund management will ensure commitment on the investments according to UNs new Principles of Responsible Investment (PRI) and in the support of the 2015 United Nations MDGs and the Global Compact principles.

C4 funds aspire to not only earn a fair return on investment for its investors, but also support the development of sustainable businesses and contribute to building the economic and social foundation needed to support the African continent’s emergence from poverty.

+++

Its very interesting that the Danish pension funds actually are looking for the high risk investment (this is still what Africa is labeled as) as if they don't have any of those in the portifolio they can't offer the members the best return. At the same time the pensions paid in are increasing year-by-year and they need new scaleable products. We aim at being one they can use a lot!!!

Will be happy to answer any questions and we have started the search for building the portofolio up with business opportunities in East Africa, let me know if any who fits above?

Christina Jordan said:

John my understanding is that they will pilot the platform with businesses in Uganda and a closed number (2,000-3,000) of community participants this year. If any of your partners are in Uganda there may well be ways LiA can help. Alternatively it might be an idea to sign on as an investor (ie part of a <ned> investor group, perhaps?) in the pilot phase so that you get the lay of the land on how it all works. By the time they scale to include businesses in other African countries, you will know what to do.

I think there is somewhere on their website to sign up for the pilot. Otherwise, we'll hopefully get some specific input on how to get involved at this stage if/when the guys I met yesterday accept my invitation to post here.

Mads Kjaer said:

Thank you and Tim will tomorrow or night update on MyC4 as it will be coming to you... Here is a small slaes pitch of how You could choose to engage>>>

Would you like to be a MyC4 Builder?

We are currently looking for beta testers to be a part of designing MyC4 - investing in up-and-coming businesses in Africa, debating and building a community and giving us feedback on what works and what doesn’t.

What is MyC4 MyC4 is a new venture that through an online platform connects investors and competences globally to businesses In Africa, with the purpose of creating sustainable businesses. We call it: “Eradicating Poverty Through Business”

What can you do on MyC4:

Enrolling as builder, beta testing will happen from May07 to October07, where you will be a part of an exclusive group designing MyC4. All it takes is your involvement, your specific competences and $200 that you are willing to invest in African businesses of your choice available on MyC4.

We expect you to: - Invest in up-and-coming businesses from Day one - Bring diversity and your skills and competences - Involve in Entrepreneurship building activities - Give us feedback on what works and what doesn’t

In return MyC4 can give you: - Possibility to earn money on your investment - Gain knowledge on building sustainable businesses - Extend your network globally - A platform where you can make a difference!

If you like to be considered as a MyC4 builder, please send us an email with your name and a valid email address and maybe a very short description of yourself. You will then receive a mail with a confirmation and a description on when you can expect to start investing and using MyC4.

We are looking forward to welcoming YOU to MyC4!

Visit us: www.c4-world.com and leave a statement WHY you want to be a Builder and inspire others around the world.

Sign up by sending an email to: info@c4-world.com

Hope this gives some light on how you can participate and if any Qs I will be at your service on the double.

Really exciting stuff Mads and Tim - thanks for taking the time to chime in here.

Here's a question that stems from some concept discussions we've had here in the past - Have you considered offering an incentive for referring other investors to the MyC4 platform?

Christina Jordan said:

Really exciting stuff Mads and Tim - thanks for taking the time to chime in here.

Here's a question that stems from some concept discussions we've had here in the past - Have you considered offering an incentive for referring other investors to the MyC4 platform?

Christina Jordan said:

Really exciting stuff Mads and Tim - thanks for taking the time to chime in here.

Here's a question that stems from some concept discussions we've had here in the past - Have you considered offering an incentive for referring other investors to the MyC4 platform?

Christina, we always welcome inspiration, ideas, feedback, pros/cons, etc... actually this is EXACTLY how Mads and I have been building C4:

Over the last couple of years two soulmates have been traveling from north to south and east to west presenting a very ambitious idea >> speaking to litteraly hundreds of hundres of fascinating personalities has, bit by bit, given us new insight that has been shaping the model to strengthen the concept seen from a global perspective.

As a footnote; on our way we have met people that have instantly quit their prominent carriers to be part of C4 - we are now 12 people in the "family" and still growing!

A bonus from this journey, is the birth of a double-sided C4 core value that is under the skin of the entire team; Humble & Curious >> we have a perfect understanding that we do not have all answers to fulfill the vision of eradicating poverty, thus we are extremely open towards cheering and constructive critique (mail, phone, meeting...) as I opened this post with.

To support this C4 core value: WE WANT TO BE THE FIRST COMPANY IN THE WORLD, OWNED BY THE WORLD (please fill me in if anybody out there that has knowledge/inspiration on this matter) >> the dream is to have 6.4bn $1 shares so that everybody can benefit from making a difference! Thus our pay-off: A Greater World. By You.

You can then debate whether this dream is humble, but we believe this is a decisive tool in creating massive leverage so that we all, once and for all, will eradicate poverty!!!!

To answer your specific question/idea, we are doing a beta-launch from May to end 07 (Mads posted about MyC4-builders yesterday) where we test hypothesis/elements that look good on paper but needs to be proven with behavior of real people - your idea on user incentives is definitely an element that we will tested and debated upon during these months, because users living of MyC4 is in thread with our thinking (leverage!); "Minipreneurs" (super article about this phenomenon: http://www.trendwatching.com/tre nds/MINIPRENEURS.htm)

We are also debating incentives for people bringing sustainable African businesses to the platform, but that is another story.

As further inspiration to your post, Christina; at www.springwise.com they give "Springspotters" points for bringing new innovative businesses, ideas, etc. to the platform. These points you can then save-up and later exchange for goods on Amazon and other online stores. Honestly, I bring the ideas that I spot to the table because I believe I hereby add value to the platform that then will inspire others to spot and so on and so on >> the mindset behind Wisdom of Crowds (I have no idea how many points I have got in my account at Springwise!!!).

I'm a Life In Africa member who wants to initiate the liguid soap making business.please tell more about how this works. soap and its products

As promised, here is an overview of what C4 is (the post I made earlier today should also give an insight to the thinking of C4; “first company in the world, owned by the world”, humble & curious, etc.), here goes:

C4-world (our Holding company) consists of two business concepts, namely MyC4; the online marketplace/platform and the African C4 Funds >> allowing companies across Africa to source loans and equity investments.

Mads gave yesterday an introduction to the C4 fund part on this thread, so I will focus on explaining MyC4 below.

To source investment opportunities, we will work through a combination of partner organizations including;

• Funds and NGOs that work with African entrepreneurs and SMEs
• Established companies who will give us access to African SMEs in their supply chain
• Local banks and microfinance institutions who have an interest in sharing risks or expanding the reach of their operations
• Recruit our own local credit officers

The platform will allow people from around the world that creates online investment accounts, to participate in auctions to fund the loan requested by the entrepreneurs and SMEs. Users of MyC4 will bid on loans with two things:

• Amount they wish to invest/lend
• Interest rate they wish to receive for the loan/investment.

The investment opportunities on MyC4 will eventually range from micro to macro and seed to public – our dream is that you should be able to invest from $1 to a limitless amount!

Regarding the funds we see a clear synergy, as the funds will be using the analytics, networks and knowledge from the flow on the platform, furthermore MyC4 will act as an incubator for future fund investments.

When making loans or investments in companies, whether directly through our funds, or on behalf of the investors on our platform, we will typically need to work with local banking partners to issue, administer and document the loans.

The plan is to provide these partner banks 100% of the underlying capital to fund the investments/loans, and to rely on the banks' infrastructure to actually issue the loan on our behalf, and administer it.

We will launch in Uganda first, where we have the strongest network of contacts. We then plan to expand to the rest of the continent soon thereafter (neighboring East Africa, South Africa and Ghana are high on our list of countries to expand to).

We are programming MyC4 at the moment and are targeting a launch date of May 1 for the "Beta site" of MyC4 which will operate in a controlled environment (again I encourage you here at Onet to sign up as a MyC4-builder as you here have a “saying” in how elements should could working) and expect to "go live" to the general public end this year.

I can say more about MyC4 end May... but I probably can't stay silent till then!

I am very interested on hearing more about how you, or if you, have solved the problem of how to give US investors a financial return on their investment without violating US securities laws or having to build the infrastructure to conform to those laws. I expect Kiva and others are working on this problem as well.

John Berger said:

I am very interested on hearing more about how you, or if you, have solved the problem of how to give US investors a financial return on their investment without violating US securities laws or having to build the infrastructure to conform to those laws. I expect Kiva and others are working on this problem as well.

John > I think this is exactly why I want to debate and learn on Onet... drilling questions into the concept so that we can be aware and prepare, THANK YOU.

Will check with our man in New York, Stephane > who is part of the C4 team and with us here in Uganda at present. He is an HBS MBA in Economy.

I wonder how the US securities react when you sell (or buy)something on e.g. e-Bay in Germany and get your funds back from Germany (or out) to the states?

We have quite some issues to work out over the Beta from May to Nov 07 where funds enter into MyC4 from the investors and first can be returned with ROI after Nov or following the investments maturity after Nov.

Pending on investment type the repayment will yet be colloected in Uganda and accumulated in escrow account.

Thinking some more....

Christina Jordan said:

Really exciting stuff Mads and Tim - thanks for taking the time to chime in here.

Here's a question that stems from some concept discussions we've had here in the past - Have you considered offering an incentive for referring other investors to the MyC4 platform?

Mads said: Reading through Tim's and my comments and describtion of MyC4 I can see we miss to tell you that its FREE TO INVEST on MyC4 for anybody worldwide, nice hmmm > and that the business in Africa only pay the investment fee (and cost) of 2% when the investment is fully signed up > no cure, no pay!

C4 as the company C4 will become sustainable as a business through our own funds investments in Africa and the returns from these investments, just like any other investor.

You could say, first the business in Africa wins, the the investor wins and finally C4 wins.

Like on Prosper all transaction present and past will be transparent for anybody on the MyC4 platform.

Company's can also invest, not just individuals > actually in Denmark many of the Company's we talk with will let the employee's invest CSR money on behalf of the company... you could call it CSO -Opportunity instead of Responsibility.

Ayyeee I always write so much, sorry. Yet trying to explain Onet before anybody new about blog's etc would also take some words, or the internet... Roger and Over We have talked about paying The Service Providers (you could also call them brokers) who would come with business targets a part of the 2% fee the businesses pay's for any full signed listings on MyC4. The Danish Governments Aid department, DANIDA has offered to assist us with funds/grants in this direction.

I wish that what I am about to post is not true.

First - I am not a securities lawyer, but I do have a lot of experience in the securities business and hold a variety of supervisory licenses.

There are a variety of securities laws in the US that are designed to protect investors from fraud, and I am concerned that these laws will require you to change your plans.

In the US, if you want to offer an investment opportunity to a wide group of potential investors (and your plan is make this open to all in the US right), each offer has to be registered with the SEC and with each State you want to offer in. Then you are restricted to only using the complete and unaltered SEC approved filing to market the security, so you could not have a web page that descried it - you could only have a web page that linked to the full SEC document. There are more restrictions, like needing securities licenses to offer it, etc.

Then of course you would have to comply with SarbOx and many other very expensive regulations.

This is why others who want to do what you want have chosen different paths. Proper is strictly peer to peer lending (looser regulation) and Kiva is non interest lending. This is an area that really cries out for changes in the law or creative solutions, but I am not aware of either.

[Edited by author: John Berger on 17 Mar 2007 06:19 PST: edit - grammer]

You asked

I wonder how the US securities react when you sell (or buy)something on e.g. e-Bay in Germany and get your funds back from Germany (or out) to the states?

That is tax law not securities law, unless it is an investment you are selling, then it follows what I said above. e-bay would not let you list it.

John, my hats off to you for willingness to share information... even when it is hard to share because it presents a challenge to a business model. I'm sure Mads and Tim (and the C4 people, many of whom have started their own business in the past) will take your information with an appreciation of offering experience, guidance and assistance.

In general, thank you for sharing your knowledge so freely and openly with others.

John, I know you and I have had a similar conversation in the past about investment crossing national boundaries. Since then I've become acquainted with Chris Cook who's illustrated how such a thing can be made possible with share asset investment. In one particular case, a Scottish nonprofit investing with a charity in Pakistan who generate electricity from a wind farm.

Made possible apparently in UK law by the recently concieved legal wrapper of a UK LLP. He tells me a US LLC can equally deliver the same outcome, in a less permanent form.

Tim, that Harvard article was fascinating. Especially thee point of the influence on terrorism.

My reason for saying that is that a targeted business driven approach was advocated by my now colleague, as a response to the failures of the Defense Enterprise Fund. It resulted in the Tomsk Regional Initiative in Siberia.

Though I've mentioned it many times, as far as I've been able to ascertain, it's the only business driven pilot to have achieved full cost recovery over a 5 year project and yet few people know about it.

Here is the background on pitching the concept to the US President:

http://www.p-ced.com/History/tab id/57/Default.aspx

Jeff, in the US, using an LLP only works up to a limited number of investors. After that it is subject to securities laws. It would be great to know which countries have better laws that we could aspire to.

John, I guess it's best to ask Chris Cook directly, but as far as I've understood it there's no limit. Some background here also, on the Open Capital group:

http://www.omidyar.net/group/ope ncapital/

I should also add that Chris has been invited to participate in the Global Land Value Tools project which aims to use GIS mapping techniques in Africa.

[Edited by author: Jeff Mowatt on 17 Mar 2007 12:40 PST: additon]

Jeff Mowatt said:

John, I know you and I have had a similar conversation in the past about investment crossing national boundaries. Since then I've become acquainted with Chris Cook who's illustrated how such a thing can be made possible with share asset investment. In one particular case, a Scottish nonprofit investing with a charity in Pakistan who generate electricity from a wind farm.

Made possible apparently in UK law by the recently concieved legal wrapper of a UK LLP. He tells me a US LLC can equally deliver the same outcome, in a less permanent form.

Thank you for your feedback to the law-part of our model!

Jeff, do you have the contact details on Chris Cook? It would be great to debate this with him...

Everybody: THANK you for the very qualified feedback you have posted over the weekend, as to the law-part of our business model.... yes, we are aware that this is not an easy area to deal with, but this is NOT going to stop us >> there MUST be a viable solution out there that live up to the law requirements!!!

We are going to follow the rules, so it might be that we can not have US citizens onboard as MyC4-builders from May???

If Mads and I are not so active on this thread as earlier, it is not a result of us not finding the debate interesting and useful, but rather a result of us being a small team (only counting 12 people) that needs to focus our time solving issues like the above mentioned.

Please keep posting, as we read it all...

>>We are going to follow the rules, so it might be that we can not have US citizens onboard as MyC4-builders from May???<<

John Berger (or anyone), I read a handful of the KMPG books for setting up biz's in other countries a few years ago when I was exploring expanding overseas, the practical ins/outs, do's/don'ts. What are some of the realities of a Gibraltar, Bahama type solution for a US citizen to this problem? (Yes, you're not a tax atty, legal advisor, etc ;-)

Mark, though it's probably not going to answer your question, I've noted a great deal of international investment coming from companies in the British Virgin Islands in recent times.

We had to set up a business in Ukraine, using whatever local resources we could lay our hands on to ensure that we registered for practically any imaginable business activity. It cost 300 dollars. At the same time, social contact with a manager at Cap-Gemini informed me they were doing the same thing, in some cases for a single employee per country at a anticipated cost of 500,000 dollars or maybe UK pounds.

Getting it wrong was considered too high risk for them, so we couldn't help.