Breaking New Ground: iGravity's First Impact-Linked Loan in Colombia
We just closed our first impact-linked loan in Colombia.
After months of partnership, due diligence, and careful structuring, we’re proud to announce an impact-linked facility for Critertec Educación, our first transaction in the region and a significant milestone for iGravity, for Critertec, and for the broader impact education ecosystem in Latin America.
This deal was made possible through the Impact-Linked Fund for Education 2.0, backed by SDC (Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) and the Jacobs Foundation. It represents more than just capital deployment. It’s a bet on a model we believe in: that the right kind of financing, structured around verified outcomes, can help high-impact enterprises scale solutions that traditional systems struggle to deliver.
And it starts with teachers.
The Opportunity: Teachers as the Lever for Change
Over the past decades, Latin America has made significant progress in expanding access to education. More children and young people are in school than ever before. But access alone does not guarantee learning, nor does it guarantee transformation.
Despite relatively high public investment—Colombia, for example, allocates close to 5% of its GDP to education—student outcomes remain deeply concerning. More than 60% of Colombian students perform below satisfactory levels in language and mathematics. Dropout rates persist. Engagement is fragile.
Behind these numbers lies a less visible but critical issue: many students struggle to find meaning in the educational experience itself. They often fail to see how what happens in the classroom connects to their lives, their identities, or their future possibilities. Disengagement, boredom, and ultimately dropout are frequently symptoms of a deeper motivational gap.
And this is where one of the most powerful levers for change comes into focus: teachers.
This is not a question of effort or commitment. Teachers across Latin America work under immense pressure and with limited resources. The challenge lies in the systems designed to support them. Pre-service training, professional development, and in-service coaching are often fragmented, outdated, and disconnected from classroom realities. In Colombia, only 19% of teacher training institutions are accredited as “high-quality.” Most programs emphasize theory over practice, and ongoing professional development is typically voluntary, inconsistent, and rarely aligned with the real challenges teachers face every day.
The consequences are clear. Many teachers enter the classroom underprepared—not only in pedagogical tools, but in their ability to inspire, to engage, and to help students reimagine what education can mean for their lives. Across Latin America, only 13% of teachers demonstrate moderate to advanced digital competencies, and nearly 75% report feeling unprepared to integrate digital tools into their teaching.
Yet the role of the teacher goes far beyond content delivery. Teachers are often the first—and sometimes the only—adults capable of helping students challenge self-limiting beliefs, expand their sense of possibility, and connect learning with purpose. When teachers are equipped not just to teach, but to inspire, classrooms change. Motivation increases. Engagement deepens. Retention improves.
When teachers receive the right support, education stops being a passive process and becomes a transformative experience.
Enter Critertec: Eight Years of Proving What Works
This is where organizations like Critertec come in.
Founded in 2016 by Sebastián Moreno, Critertec emerged from a hands-on experiment inside public schools in Bogotá. At the time, Sebastián was leading early experiences in augmented reality, virtual reality, robotics, and 360° content production with teachers and students. The initial hypothesis was simple: technology could make learning more engaging.
The results were immediate and unexpected. Weekly student participation grew from fewer than 200 students to more than 3,500. But the most important discovery was not about the technology itself. It was about relationships.
What these early experiences revealed was something counterintuitive for many education systems: technology, when used intentionally, can bring teachers and students closer—not push them apart. Teachers who initially felt intimidated by digital tools began to see how immersive technologies could help them connect emotionally with their students, speak their language, and rebuild motivation inside the classroom.
This insight became foundational to Critertec’s philosophy. The team began to refer to these tools as Technologies of Empathy—not because they replace human connection, but because they amplify it when humanity is kept at the center. A teacher with digital skills was not just delivering more “innovative” lessons; they were connecting in deeper ways. Students showed up voluntarily. They stayed longer. They wanted to learn. They gave more of themselves to the process.
As these experiences scaled, another pattern became clear: teachers were eager to learn, but lacked practical, relevant training. They wanted to integrate technology meaningfully into their lesson plans, but existing professional development offerings were abstract, theoretical, and disconnected from their daily reality.
Over the past eight years, Critertec has worked to close that gap. The organization has reached nearly 500,000 teachers and students across Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Mexico, and Ecuador. Its work has been developed in collaboration with a diverse ecosystem of partners, including the MIT Educational Innovation Lab, ministries and secretariats of education across Latin America, Microsoft, Canva, Comfama, and INDOTEL (the Dominican Institute of Telecommunications), among others. Several of these large-scale initiatives have been supported by multilateral organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Along the way, Critertec has produced transmedia educational content that makes learning engaging and meaningful, and built an innovation lab that co-creates solutions alongside governments, universities, and communities.
Today, Critertec’s work is structured around three core verticals:
- Edutainment Production – creating engaging, multimedia educational content that blends pedagogy, storytelling, and technology
- Educational Innovation Lab – co-designing, piloting, and testing solutions with partners in real contexts
- Large-Scale Projects – delivering teacher training and curriculum innovation at national and regional scale
But the most ambitious chapter of this journey is still unfolding.
CriterAcademy is Critertec’s next step: a digital platform designed to transform how teachers across Latin America access professional development—bringing together technology, empathy, evidence, and inspiration at scale.
Why an Impact-Linked Loan?
This is Critertec’s first substantial debt facility, a milestone in their financing journey.
Traditional loans weren’t the right fit. Banks don’t understand the education sector well enough to price risk appropriately, especially for an enterprise launching a new digital product and requiring a relatively large ticket. While equity would have been the natural first choice for an early-stage edtech startup, Critertec also had a strong pipeline of contracts, providing visibility on near-term revenues. Hence, a loan from an impact investor was a more attractive option for Critertec.
An impact-linked loan offered a third path.
Here’s how it works: The loan provides capital to fund CriterAcademy’s MVP development and early operating costs. But repayment terms are tied to verified impact outcomes, meaning that as Critertec hits agreed-upon milestones (teacher reach and engagement, which underpin improved learning outcomes), the financing structure adjusts to reflect their progress.
This does two things:
- It accelerates Critertec’s scale-up, in turn enabling the scaling of its impact
Critertec’s growth is supported by access to capital tailored to its operating realities, including repayment structures aligned with seasonal cash flows, and that reward its impact. The higher the impact, the lower the cost of capital for the company. - It builds their investment readiness.
By repaying this facility and demonstrating impact at scale, Critertec strengthens its financial and impact track record and positions itself for future capital raises.
For iGravity and its development partners (Jacobs and SDC), it’s an opportunity to deploy capital in a way that rewards actual impact, not just intentions. And for the broader ecosystem, it’s proof that impact-linked finance can work in Latin America, not just in theory, but in practice.
Why This Matters for Colombia and the Region
Colombia is emerging as one of Latin America’s most dynamic EdTech markets. Over 140 ventures have been mapped as of 2024, placing the country alongside Mexico and Brazil in regional prominence. The sector is growing rapidly, driven by increasing recognition of EdTech as a strategic industry and growing demand for innovative learning solutions.
But challenges remain. Most EdTech enterprises serve corporate training or higher education. Only 29% focus on K–12, where public system adoption is critical. And access to capital remains a major bottleneck.
EdTech enterprises struggle to find financing that understands their business models, tolerates longer timelines to profitability, and aligns with their social missions. Traditional investors want faster returns. Grants don’t build sustainable businesses. And debt is either unavailable or unaffordable.
Impact-linked finance bridges that gap.
By structuring capital around outcomes, we can support enterprises through the early stages of scaling, when they’re building product-market fit, testing pricing models, and proving impact. And by doing it in Colombia first, we’re signaling to the region that this kind of financing is available, viable, and scalable.
This is our first deal here. It won’t be our last.
What’s Next
This milestone matters for three reasons:
- It’s proof that impact-linked finance works in Latin America.
We’ve deployed this model in other regions. Now we’re bringing it here, and Critertec is showing that enterprises in the region are ready for it. - It’s a signal to the ecosystem.
Colombia and Latin America have vibrant EdTech sectors, but they’re capital-constrained. This deal shows that patient, outcomes-focused capital is available. More enterprises can access it. More investors can deploy it. - It’s a bet on teachers.
Education systems won’t transform without empowering the people in classrooms every day. Critertec gets that. So do we.
To Sebastián Moreno and the Critertec team: congratulations on this milestone. We’re excited to grow alongside you as you build something that matters.
To the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Jacobs Foundation: thank you for believing in this model, in this fund, and in the power of aligning capital with outcomes.
And to the Colombian and Latin American impact community: this is just the beginning. We’re here. We’re investing. And we’re building for the long term.
More to come.
And to the iGravity team that worked tirelessly to make this happen, Pilar Cristobal, Mariana Romero Escobar, Lucas Tschan, Itamar Ahrenbeck, and Sheila Ayesiga, thank you for your work!
About iGravity
iGravity is an impact investment and advisory firm focused on deploying capital that drives measurable social and environmental outcomes in emerging markets. Through funds like the Impact-Linked Fund for Education, we support high-impact enterprises with financing structures that reward results, not just growth. Learn more at igravity.net.
About Critertec Educación
Critertec is a Colombian EdTech enterprise that empowers educators through innovative training, digital content, and large-scale programs. Since 2016, the company has reached nearly 500,000 teachers and students across Latin America. Learn more at critertec.com.
About the Impact-Linked Fund for Education
The Impact-Linked Fund for Education provides innovative financing (Social Impact Incentives and Impact-Linked Loans) to organizations delivering inclusive, quality education for vulnerable children and youth. Launched in December 2021 with funding from SDC and the Jacobs Foundation, the fund combines capital deployment with technical assistance, research, and advocacy to strengthen the entire ecosystem.
Learn more about the Impact-Linked Fund for Education.
