Bob Pattillo
Bob Pattillo is an entrepreneur and founder of Gray Ghost Ventures, Gray Matters Capital, First Light Ventures, and Village Capital. Gray Ghost Ventures is a microfinance and social venture capital firm dedicated to providing market-based capital solutions to entrepreneurs who are addressing the needs of low-income communities in emerging markets.
Career
In 2003, Pattillo founded the Gray Ghost Ventures microfinance fund, a $69m fund that focuses on regional equity microfinance funds that supply start-up and expansion capital to microfinance institutions around the world. Today, Gray Ghost Ventures has over $800 million under management. In 2006, Pattillo began investing in social enterprise through his Gray Matters Capital Foundation, and in 2008 he launched the $35m Gray Ghost DOEN Social Ventures Coöperatief, in partnership with the DOEN Foundation. In its work in social ventures, Gray Ghost and its sister fund First Light Ventures have coinvested alongside Acumen Fund, the Omidyar Network, and Shell Foundation., helped found the Global Impact Investing Network, and spun out the First Light India Accelerator and Village Capital.
Awards and recognition
Pattillo was awarded Georgia Tech's inaugural Allen Prize, and has been named one of Forbes' Top 30 social entrepreneurs of 2011. He has also served as a Director of Accion International and Microvest, and is an Advisor to the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT.