Beyond survival: what outcomes-based financing is unlocking for India's nano entrepreneurs through our NEST Outcomes Facility
India's 11 million nano enterprises employ 20 million people, and yet, most remain trapped at low productivity, cut off from markets and formal finance. We set up the Nano Entrepreneurship Sustainability and Transformation (NEST) Outcomes Facility in response to this.
As India’s first outcomes-based financing (OBF) platform focused on nano entrepreneurship, NEST links funding directly to verified improvements for nano entrepreneurs, in terms of increased incomes, business formalisation, enterprise resilience, and credit readiness. It uses OBF to bring higher accountability to these end outcomes, ensuring that nano entrepreneurs’ businesses move from fragile to future-ready, from struggling to successful, and from surviving to sustainable. The British Asian Trust is also working closely with its implementation partners, helping them strengthen their delivery models, build organisational capacity and use real-time data to track progress and adapt their approach to achieve the ambitious outcomes.
The NEST Outcomes Facility is designed to reach thousands of nano entrepreneurs over the next four years, primarily women (at least 50%), first-time borrowers new to formal credit (70%), and low-income households earning below INR 300,000 (GBP 2,329) annually. This first-of-its-kind initiative is backed by the British Asian Trust as anchor, 360 ONE Foundation as Founding Partner & Funder, and BT Group as Programme Funder for Cohort 1.
The first cohort is working with 730 nano entrepreneurs, 98% of them women, and 43% from marginalised and tribal communities, 70% of them are new-to-credit. These entrepreneurs have historically been at the margins of support programmes: too small for formal finance, and too dispersed for traditional skilling interventions. NEST meets them where they are, offering end-to-end support that spans enterprise formalisation, seed capital, hands-on training, mentoring, and market linkage, designed not just to start enterprises, but to sustain them.
Early success in NEST's asset-based rural entrepreneurship model
In Jamdra village, Dahod district, Lilaben Gulabbhai Baria had always farmed. But farming the open field meant depending on rainfall that didn't always come, and harvests that didn't always hold. Each season brought fresh uncertainty, and the income it delivered - a median of roughly ₹19,000 (GBP 147) to ₹21,000 (GBP 163) a year was never quite enough to feel secure.
Through the NEST Outcomes Facility and our implementation partner Collectives for Integrated Livelihood Initiatives (CInI), Lilaben received something she had never had before: a greenhouse, installed and formally registered in her name. Along with the greenhouse came the rest: training, better inputs, support to grow crops that actually fetch a good price, and for the first time, a route into formal markets and credit.
In March 2026 alone, Lilaben sold 687 kg of English cucumbers and earned ₹11,500 (GBP 89) from her very first harvest — more than half of what she used to earn in an entire year. That is just the beginning: a full year of production could yield at least 6,000 kg and earnings of ₹90,000 (GBP 698) or more. As she diversifies into additional high-value crops, Lilaben's story shows what becomes possible when a farmer has the right asset, the right support, and a reliable route to market.
Findings from the service-based urban entrepreneurship model
NEST's second implementation partner, Pratham, is working with urban nano entrepreneurs in beauty and tailoring trades, and the milestones at six months tell a similar story of accelerated change.
Business formalisation (one of the most durable indicators of enterprise seriousness) has been achieved by 89% of enrolled entrepreneurs, up from a baseline of just 4.5%. That is nearly a 20-fold increase in six months.
Equally striking, 84% of entrepreneurs are now maintaining consistent cashbook records of business inflows and outflows over a 60-day period, compared to 40% at baseline. The discipline of tracking earnings and expenses, often the first step toward accessing formal credit, is becoming a habit.
The way forward
NEST's immediate focus is on driving meaningful improvements in income and strengthening credit readiness for this cohort. Looking ahead, we aim to expand NEST by mobilising more domestic capital, testing and adapting successful models across different contexts, and deepening partnerships with financial institutions and governments