Arjuna

Arjuna is a co-founder and managing partner of Flourish Ventures, an early-stage global venture capital firm that invests in mission-driven entrepreneurs and industry influencers working towards a fair financial system. With a primary focus on venture investing across emerging markets in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, Arjuna is driven by a deep compassion for vulnerable populations across the globe. He partners with entrepreneurs using innovative technologies to enhance their customers’ financial well-being.

Before Flourish, Arjuna was a partner at Omidyar Network, where he built a global portfolio of early-stage, inclusive fintech companies. Prior to that, Arjuna developed a deep understanding of the potential to radically alter traditional “brick-and-mortar” economics through mobile money solutions for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Before that, he invested equity and debt in consumer finance companies in emerging markets at The Rohatyn Group, a multi-billion dollar emerging markets investment firm.

In 2003, Arjuna co-founded a $120-million private equity fund focused on the turnaround of distressed commercial banks in Africa. The fund grew out of advising governments on the restructuring and privatization of its banking sector. Arjuna began his career at Lehman Brothers, where he spent five years financing power plants and airports globally.

Arjuna earned an MBA degree from Harvard Business School and a BA degree in Computer Science from Columbia University.

In The News
Blog
frontier technology
Why We Invested in Liquid
Brazil faces a housing deficit of around six million units, with millions more families living in overcrowded, precarious, or financially unsustainable conditions. Developers are eager to build, but structural bottlenecks, like slow and fragmented credit...
Blog
frontier
Why We Invested in Kamino
At Flourish, we partner with founders who pinpoint a broad problem and, in the pursuit of the solution, change their region’s whole ecosystem to better serve their customers. It’s why we first worked with Brazilian...
Blog
infrastructure
Investing in Akua: Revolutionizing Payment Processing in Colombia and Spanish-Speaking LatAm
Flourish participated in Akua's $4.3M seed round announced in October 2024. This marks our first investment in Colombia.
Podcasts
featured
Fintech One-On-One Podcast: Peter Renton Interviews Arjuna Costa
"It is the big challenge for fintech: making the financial lives better for the those who are underserved. ..one of the people who has been at the center of this fintech transformation is Arjuna Costa."
Blog
blog
Opinion: Successful Startups Are Led by Healthy Founders
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. At Flourish, we want founders to thrive, along with their companies. In the past few years, we have explored many sides of founder wellbeing, and we’ve sponsored research into...
Blog
frontier
StepChange: Announcing Our First Climate Finance Investment
We are very excited to introduce you to StepChange, an India-based provider of cutting-edge climate data science solutions for risk management.
News
general
[The Africa Report] Flourish Ventures MD Arjuna Costa targets next generation of unicorns
Flourish Ventures, which invested in Nigerian unicorn Flutterwave in its first seed round in 2017, will be seeking to unearth new unicorns as it deploys $350m in fresh capital, managing director Arjuna Costa tells The...
Blog
opinion
We’re Doubling Down on Investing in Fintech Entrepreneurs with $350M in Fresh Capital
Today we are thrilled to announce a significant milestone with our early-stage global venture fund, as we’ve secured a new commitment of $350 million. This funding comes on top of the initial $200 million in...
Blog
opinion
Is Your Board Strong? 5 Ways for Founders to Tell
As the fundraising landscape shifts from boom times to a more challenging environment, the pressure is ratcheting up on founders.
Blog
embedded finance
Why We Invested in Mapan: Rising Social Fintech Empowers Indonesian Women
Flourish and Patamar re-teamed to invest in Mapan’s community of digital saving circles. In 2009, smartphones were a mostly untapped invention – and had not yet reached many emerging markets like Indonesia.
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