AFRISHELA INVESTMENT FUND
Afrishela is the Trustâs incubated Investment Fund that is driving innovative blended capital to early growth stage women-owned and led businesses. Afrishela (her money) is a $30M gender lens investment vehicle designed, led and managed by African women whose theory of change is pegged on putting innovative and bespoke mezzanine investment capital into African women businesses along with tailored and gender and climate-forward technical assistance, and advocacy in favour of gender lens investing, to create a positive impact for women in the form of job creation, increased leadership and greater income equality. Ultimately this will lead to improved economic and social well-being in African communities with a disproportionate impact on women and girls and contribute to greater mainstreaming of gender lens investing in Africa.
Introduction
As a flagship initiative, GMT is creating an innovative financing Pan African gender lens investment vehicle to facilitate the flow of capital to women-led enterprises to meaningfully improve their quality of life, increase business size and revenue, influence household incomes, boost economic and job growth in African countries. It is an initiative that is designed by African women for African women.
FUNDING CHALLENGES FACED BY WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS
Access to capital continues to be the number one barrier faced by African Women Small and Medium Businesses (The World Bank, 2013) with the gender financing gap as measured by the 2017 IFC MSME Finance Report standing at $42 billion for Small Medium Enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Many women businesses are caught in the âmissing middleâ and âoften classified as too big or unsuitable for microfinance, too risky for banks and too small for private equityâ therefore left out of financing opportunities.
âAccording to IFCâs 2019 Gender Diversity Study female deal partners invest in almost twice as many female-led businesses as male deal partners, and fund managers with diverse leadership teams, including female partners, tend to have more diversified portfolios of investees.â
FRISHELA SOLUTIONS
OUR INVESTMENT APPROACH
We employ the use of blended finance by providing post investment technical assistance alongside investment capital, applying a gender lens in the investment process, employing a milestone-based approach to investing.
We target women-owned and led businesses with representation of women within leadership, the workforce and value chains, and with products and services that impact the under- served female segment. We seek to actively surface and support women in climate with innovative and sustainable solutions that can be strengthened and scaled to support climate adaptation and contribute to uplifting womenâs incomes and communityâs participation in climate action.
We provide innovative, responsive financing through mezza- nine structures such as impact linked loans and revenue based finance for 75% of our portfolio. We target countries where women entrepreneurship is dominant and growth opportunities exist for women businesses. Our initial countries of focus are Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda in East Africa and South Africa and Zambia in Southern Africa. We prioritise sectors where women are prevalent to increase their power and influence whilst boosting their participation and role in male dominated sectors. Our priority sectors include Agricultural value chain, Manufacturing, Renewable Energy, Retail, Health, Education and Financial Services. Our deal sizes range from $20K â $500K with an average of $300K for mezzanine and $400K for equity structures. Our expected gross IRR is 14% with a net IRR of 8%. Impact is at the heart of our investment strategy and we are deliberate to promote impact across gender and climate as well as youth, informal sector and low income communities through products and services, as well as across value chains.
OUR SCALING AMBITIONS
We shall apply a learning and scaling model to our expansion as we leverage Afrishela fund I to catalyse our impact fund (our broader vision of a $200 Million dollar fund with approximately $50 million per region to align with our Pan African mandate) by increasing our track record in gender lens investing, demonstrating proof of concept and catalysing additional investment for follow on funding for our pipeline upon exit.
Join us as we invest in innovative early growth stage women owned and led businesses that are working on gender smart and climate adaptive solutions that improve the lives of women and support the environment.
Supported by:
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