Grow With Rise

World's first growth management platform aiming to help 60 million plus women migrants grow professionally and financially. We help them learn new skills to increase their income and manage their wealth – both in host and home countries, to grow and build a better future for themselves and their families.

Solution Summary 

Currently our platform is live in the UAE, focused on domestic workers  - the more than 1 million women who come from India, Philippines and other emerging markets. Less than 5% of them have any formal training in childcare and less than 1% of them have a bank account in the UAE.  

We have partnered with global parenting experts to create affordable digital learning programs in video format, priced at between 2-5% of their monthly income and helping nannies increase their earning potential by upto 20%. We have also partnered with financial institutions in UAE and home countries to give them bank accounts and ability to invest in retirement plans, insurance and other asset classes. All of these services are provided over an app available on most app platforms. 

We want to expand this platform to the 60 plus million international and 100 million plus domestic women migrants which face the same challenges everyday. We want to help them all grow.  

Relevance to Solve

Our solution directly leverages technology to a) increase earning potential and b) drive financial inclusion - putting women in charge of their own money and giving them a path to increasing their participation in the global economy. 

Scale & Impact

UN research shows that money sent home by women migrant workers (WMW) is more likely to be used in education, family and community development. We aim to, in a decade, increase earning potential by 10% for WMWs and deploy 10% of their overall income in productive assets - yielding an estimated 20-30 billion dollars annually which goes towards building better education, health in some of the most impoverished societies globally. We rise by growing others. 

ILO recognizes 66 million international women migrant workers globally and estimates another 100 million in country women migrants. 

Studies also recognize women migrants as more vulnerable, since they 

• work in more informal sectors of the economy with weaker labor protection, 
• come from more impoverished backgrounds; and
• struggle to build assets given social norms in home countries.  

These vulnerabilities create an environment of limited professional development, limited income growth and limited assets to retire on - creating a vicious migrant cycle, where next generation migrates as well. We want to change that, we want to help them grow

Women disproportionately experience poverty, stemming from unequal labor divisions and a lack of control over economic resources. (UN, 2015).

Individuals (91% women) who were randomly assigned to receive a free savings account reduced short-term debt by 20% (Kast and Pomeranz, 2014).

Women migrants remain vulnerable, but their remittance is a critical development tool and higher quality than men migrants (UN Women, 2017)

Barriers include: inappropriate product offerings or ineffective distribution channels, limited / costly access to bank accounts.

Our growing gamut of tools (education, cross border financial tools) reduces some of the social and infrastructure barriers to their growth.  

Our solution is currently in pilot in the UAE domestic help segment. We are reaching them using digital marketing and targeting employers (households) to help them support their workers. We have already reached more than 500 women through our skills development or financial development offering. 

We want to help these women a) increase their earning potential by 10-20% over the next 12 months and b) help them start saving around 10% of their earnings towards a future basket. 

We want to engage at least 10% of the target segment within 18 months. 

App downloads across app platforms - 100,000 growth partners in 18 months

courses taken and skills earned on the platform - 25,000 accreditation earned in 18 months

saving plans initiated on the platform - 15,000 saving plans in 18 months

Balance sheet vs flow banking - Most financial inclusion solutions focus on better flow solutions (e.g. remittance, salary account) for migrants. We focus on their balance sheet (retirement fund, insurance etc). We aspire to redefining cross-border banking and shifting focus to the individual

Skill development designed specifically for the audience. An example is our partnership with Nanny Stella - a global parenting expert. Her parenting advice has been captured in a short video content (5-7 minute a module) specifically designed for a low-end smartphone and non-native English speakers.

Women migrant workers are among the most entrepreneurial, yet the most abused communities globally. They are brave enough to leave their homes and risk emotional and physical abuse to build a better future, yet the societies they move into or the ones they come from often fail them. 

We are the only venture we know which seeks a long-term partnership with them - it is about their growth - both professional and financial. 

Our solution is a free app available for anyone to download on the Google and Apple app stores. 

Our skills development platform is designed to be affordable and so are our banking services - where we do not charge the migrant women anything to gain access to the financial platform. 

We are a bootstrapped venture, which is now in active discussions with external investors.

Key Risks

Employer blow back risks- Upskilling women migrants to enable wage increase may generate pushback from employers who want to maintain low cost base. Need to maintain win-win perception on both sides. 

Cross-border regulatory challenges - Building assets across jurisdictions has significant regulatory grey areas and requires careful maneuvering to ensure compliance on both sides.

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We are taking on a big problem involving multiple jurisdictions as well as multiple disciplines (skill development, income growth, wealth management). We are applying to Solve to gain access to the network of experts and partnerships which can help us refine and scale the product. 

We have existing partnerships with a) structured finance firms helping us create cross-border product structures, b) financial entities based out of migrant home and host countries (UAE, India, Php) and c) large number of experts in childcare which provide training to our domestic helpers using the e-learning platform.