Alex Counts
President and CEO @ Grameen Foundation
Alex Counts is a funding round investor at Grameen Foundation focused on Agriculture and Financial Services. Alex Counts founded Grameen Foundation and became its President and CEO in 1997, after having worked in microfinance and poverty reduction for 10 years. A Cornell University graduate, Counts’ commitment to poverty eradication deepened as a Fulbright scholar in Bangladesh, where he witnessed innovative poverty solutions being developed by GrameenBank. He trained under Professor Muhammad Yunus, the founder and managing director of Grameen Bank, and co-recipient of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. Since its modest beginnings, sparked by a $6,000 seed grant provided by Prof. Yunus (who was a founding board member and continues as director emeritus), Grameen Foundation has grown to a leading international humanitarian organization with an annual budget of approximately $25 million.Counts has propelled Grameen Foundation’s philosophy through his writings, including Small Loans, Big Dreams: How Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus and Microfinance Are Changing the World. Counts has also been published in The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Stanford Social Innovation Review, The Miami Herald, The Christian Science Monitor and elsewhere. In 2007 he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from Horace Mann School. While at Cornell University, he received the John F. Kennedy Memorial Award, given annually by the Class of 1964 to the graduating senior who is the best example of the ideal of public service articulated by our 35th President.Counts is a board member, and the immediate past Chair, of Fonkoze USA and co-chairs the Fonkoze Family Coordinating Committee—two governance bodies related to the largest microfinance institution in Haiti. He is also immediate past Chair of Project Enterprise, a New York City microlender, and board member emeritus. He sits on the Advisory Council of the Center for Financial Inclusion, and the Truelift Steering Committee, and serves as Co-Chair of the Microfinance CEO Working Group.Before leading Grameen Foundation, Counts served as the legislative director of RESULTS and as a regional project manager for CARE-Bangladesh. He speaks Bengali and lives in Washington, DC, with his wife, Emily, and their cat, Seymour.
- Total investments:
- 1
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 0%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries Alex Counts invests in
Stages Alex Counts invests in
Countries Alex Counts invests in
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
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| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
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Investment Focus
Industry
- Agriculture 1 (100%)
- Financial Services 1 (100%)
- Social Entrepreneurship 1 (100%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
Juhudi Kilimo
|
Juhudi Kilimo provides asset financing, technical assistance, and business training services to smallholder farmers and small-to-medium agro businesses in Kenya. It offers financing for dairy cows and goats; poultry, pigs, rabbits, and other livestock as well as fish farming; agricultural equipment, including irrigation, agro-processing, andenergy-related equipment; and motorcycles, bicycles, and other vehicles primarily to transport farm goods.The company was founded in 2004 and is based in Nairobi, Kenya. | $1.8M / May 10, 2011 |
Co-Investors
About Grameen Foundation
Grameen Foundation was founded in 1997 to help the world’s poor address their own unique needs. They believe that all of us desire to improve Their lives, and that all of us – even the poorest among us – can reach Their full potential if They are given access to the right tools and information.Their work focuses on harnessing theunderappreciated strengths of the poor, an approach inspired by Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Grameen Foundation President Alex Counts also trained under and worked closely with Professor Yunus in Bangladesh for six years. While Professor Yunus is a founding director and a current director emeritus of Their board, Grameen Foundation and Grameen Bank are independent organizations and have no financial or institutional links.
Grameen Foundation Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
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Alex Counts
President and CEO
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Farooq Abbasi
Non-profit Advisory
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Muhammad Yunus
Founder
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FAQ
What does Alex Counts invest in?
Alex Counts invests primarily in Agriculture, Financial Services and Social Entrepreneurship startups, most often at Funding Round stage. Most of the 1 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Kenya. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact Alex Counts?
Public channels for Alex Counts include LinkedIn and X (Twitter). For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did Alex Counts last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for Alex Counts closed in May 2011. Shizune tracks 1 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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