News

Peter Heijen stood at the foundation of first Lendahand and later PlusPlus. In his last blog for PlusPlus he looks back on the past years, from the very first idea for PlusPlus to this new step for the growing platform. It is with great thanks and appreciation that we say goodbye to him!

Making impact, that's the goal of PlusPlus. Impact for small and medium-sized agri-food entrepreneurs in developing countries. And that is also what we have done over the past 2.5 years. In the infographic you see all our results all in one glance.

They seem like two entirely different worlds: modern-day digital technology and traditional small-scale agriculture. But in spite of their perceived contradiction, they can actually be used to strengthen each other. Indonesian company PasarMIKRO shows how technology can directly benefit underserved Indonesian farmers and boost rural communities. In this interview, PasarMIKRO CEO and co-founder Dien Wong explains how.

On Friday February 17, PlusPlus had the pleasure of welcoming a visitor: James Ododa, co-founder of Ndivisi, paid a visit to our office. A nice opportunity to meet in person! The Kenyan entrepreneur met not only the PlusPlus team, but also two people who had invested in his company. It turned out to be a pleasant, intimate meeting about how Ndivisi got started, unexpected challenges and plans for the future. Below, you can read all about it.

It’s a cliché you hear often: money can’t buy you happiness. In this blog, Peter Heijen wonders if that’s really true. Scientists have also examined this issue. What they all concluded? The answer is actually quite simple...

Giving up a successful career in banking to make impact, PlusPlus founder Peter Heijen did it. Previously, as a banker, he made rich people even richer. Now, with PlusPlus, he is building "a community of do-gooders". Soon, this inspiring portrait will appear in Dutch newspaper Nederlands Dagblad.

Until now, loans at PlusPlus were always paid in euros. However, for SMEs in Latin America, that is not the most logical currency. For them, paying in euros often involves extra costs and a lot of hassle with their bank. In this continent, the U.S. dollar is the most common foreign currency. Therefore, to make things a little easier for our Latin American entrepreneurs, PlusPlus now offers a loan with repayment in dollars. We will explain here what that means.

Last month, our colleague Michelle Steggerda traveled to Central America to visit some PlusPlus entrepreneurs. Especially for us, she put her experiences on paper. Read all about her trip to this region in her personal travel blog.

Palm oil has a negative image. Large-scale plantations, for which rain forests are cut down and farmers are kicked off their land, created a bad reputation. But it does not have to be like that! Sustainably produced palm oil, with attention for biodiversity and the environment, offers enormous opportunities for poverty stricken small-scale farmers to build a better life. Michel Riemersma, Solidaridad’s Policy Advisor on Palm Oil, explains why palm oil doesn't have to be a bad thing...

Female entrepreneurship has been growing steep in the past decade. This is very important to close the worldwide gender gap. Entrepreneurship and business ownership empowers women all over the world to strengthen their position. This is even more true in developing countries where the position of females is generally even worse than in developed countries. More than enough reason to contribute to female entrepreneurship and female business ownership in emerging markets!