Akash Bhojwani of Arclight Capital advocates long-term investing in emerging markets, highlighting how technological advances are unlocking scale in rural finance and creating new opportunities for patient investors willing to ride out market cycles.
Akash Bhojwani is betting that the next wave of returns in emerging markets will go to investors with long memories and even longer time horizons. In a market cycle that often sees money rush in on the back of a hot theme and then rush out just as quickly, the founder and managing director of Arclight Capital argues that the real opportunity belongs to those willing to back businesses early and remain committed through the slow work of building them.
Bhojwani’s favourite example is rural finance, which he describes as one of the world’s most overlooked commercial frontiers. Agriculture still leaves much of its risk uninsured, and for decades lending to farmers has been difficult to justify because the cost of reaching them outweighed the return from individual loans. But he says that changing technology is altering the economics. Satellite imagery, soil data and transaction histories can now be used to model cash flow more precisely, while agentic systems, software that can act as well as predict, could eventually reprice risk, adjust credit and process insurance claims with far less manual intervention.
That shift matters because it attacks the central obstacle that kept the market closed: cost. Bhojwani argues that once technology reduces the expense of serving small and dispersed borrowers, agriculture becomes financeable at scale rather than as a concessionary bet. Acumen’s patient-capital work points in a similar direction, backing high-impact enterprises that serve people living in poverty while accepting slower, more uncertain paybacks in exchange for long-term structural change.
Arclight Capital says its own strategy is built on the same principle of patience. The Dubai-based firm operates across the UAE-India corridor and focuses on long-term value creation in sectors including agriculture, fintech and energy. Bhojwani says investors should own regulated infrastructure instead of renting access to it, anchor themselves to real trade routes and match the duration of their capital to the duration of the problem. For him, the broader lesson is simple: in emerging markets, the advantage often goes not to the fastest entrant but to the investor willing to stay long enough for the market to mature.
Disclaimer: This article is intended to inform and educate, not to recommend or endorse any financial product, investment or strategy. Please consider your own financial circumstances and seek professional advice where appropriate before making financial decisions.
