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Overview 

There is an increasing awareness of the importance of gender equality and social inclusion analysis among policy makers, investors, and business leaders. However, due to the lack of organizational and individual resources, these analyses have often been sidelined. Equilo is a startup working to develop accessible, user-friendly tools to address and overcome these challenges. By enabling users to accelerate the use of gender equality and social inclusion analysis in their decision-making, Equilo is aiming to make a system-level impact and contribute to creating a more just world. 

Course Topics: 

  • Gender analysis 
  • Gender lens investing 
  • Strategy 
  • Social enterprise 

Introduction 

Having observed various challenges associated with conducting gender equality and social inclusion analysis, Jessica Menon founded Equilo in 2017. The goal of this gender tech startup, which is a social enterprise, was to develop a series of online tools to enhance gender equality and social inclusion analysis. These tools would be used by development and humanitarian organizations, investors, and businesses, enabling them to integrate these analyses in the early decision-making stage in their investing or program design, aiming to generate more inclusive outcomes. 

Equilo offers subscription-based online applications designed to automate gender-based analysis by quickly collecting and synthesizing the most current gender data. Equilo argues that these tools can offer a better, faster, and more cost-effective gender equality and social inclusion analysis.  The company introduced its first tool in December 2020, and, as of 2023, it had grown its customer base to 1,600 individual and 1,000 institutional subscribers. The company is working towards making gender-based analysis a standard part of the work of the organizations it serves. 

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This case was written by Vania Sembiring. The author prepared this case under the supervision of Professors Sarah Kaplan and Hyeun Lee with guidance from Pranay Samson.