Author: Riitho

Valuing and investing in biodiversity internationally for national security at home

Posted on by Riitho

This article was first published on the Gov.uk  website.

 

Earlier this week Defra’s Minister for Nature, Jenny Riddell-Carpenter, announced £28 million of funding to help support countries in the global south to develop their economies without harming biodiversity, and to invest in their own natural capital.

And today at COP17, Minister Riddell-Carpenter hosted an event discussing how to move beyond the conceptual case for nature security, to showcase implementation in practice.

Biodiversity is worth protecting in and of itself. For the countless plant and animal species we share our planet with, and the intrinsic wonder and beauty they give us. That value is incalculable.

But biodiversity and key ecosystems around the world also underpin our economies, our food and water security, supply chains and, we now know, our national security.

In January we published our national security assessment on global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. Its message was clear: ecosystem degradation is not only an environmental challenge, but a strategic risk to UK security and prosperity. As natural systems degrade, risks can cascade across food and water security, economic resilience, supply chains and geopolitical stability.

Therefore, biodiversity does have a value. And that value is felt all around us: in the water we drink, the food we eat, the resilience of our communities, and through our economic resilience and national security.

Yet it rarely appears on balance sheets, or in investment decisions. We need to make the invisible, visible; bringing nature’s value into the evidence and policies that shape finance, investment and growth. Doing that demands action.

And so, part of the funding announced this week will go to support the work of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Biodiversity Finance Initiative (Biofin) and to Financial Sector Deepening Africa’s (FSD Africa) Nature Programme.

These initiatives help countries put biodiversity at the heart of economic and financial decision-making, through identifying and reforming environmentally harmful subsidies, making public spending more effective, mobilising private finance for biodiversity and putting it at the heart of board room’s decision-making.

Much of this work will take place in countries hosting these critical ecosystems, while supporting our commitments on delivery of the Global Biodiversity Framework Targets 14, 15, 18 and 19.

Protecting biodiversity is not simply an environmental objective. It is an investment in our economic resilience and our national security.

 

Aligning public budgets and private capital with nature

Below Onno from Biofin and Dorothy from FSD Africa talk about how their work develops resilient economies by including nature in economic decisions and attracting public and private investment.

 

Onno van den Heuvel, Global Lead for Nature Finance at UNDP, said:

“Redesigning subsidies that harm nature presents an immense opportunity to close the finance gap, especially in an era of strained public budgets and declining Official Development Assistance.

“According to an estimate by the Paulson Institute, globally “governments spend more subsidising nature’s destruction in one month than they do on biodiversity protection in an entire year.” The UK’s support to Biofin will enable governments in 138 countries to screen and redesign subsidies that contribute to nature loss.

“In Thailand, Ecuador and Colombia, this work has already demonstrated impact at scale, with millions of dollars in savings to public budgets and a greening of agricultural credit that delivers co-benefits for the climate, livelihoods and gender equality.

“The idea that countries must choose between economic growth and protecting nature is fundamentally flawed.

“A transition to a nature-positive economy could unlock US$10.1 trillion in annual business value and create 395 million jobs by 2030, through changes in how we produce food, build infrastructure and meet our energy needs. The support to Biofin will drive that systemic transformation by de-risking and incentivising investments that can deliver nature-positive economic growth.”

 

Dororthy Maseke, Nature Finance Lead at FSD Africa, said:

“Crucial to this transformation is changing how the financial sector builds nature into policy and investment decisions. Institutions that understand their dependence on nature can better value, invest in, and protect it.

“Nowhere is this more important than Africa, where up to 62% of GDP is highly or moderately dependent on nature. Investing in nature is not only about protecting habitats such as the Congo Basin, the world’s second largest rainforest and a critical carbon sink. It is about livelihoods and economic stability.

“The World Bank estimates the Congo Basin’s forests provided ecosystem services worth US$1.15 trillion in 2020, over 90% of it from global climate regulation. Yet shifting agriculture, urban expansion and land pressures saw the forest cover reduced by 8.6 million hectares (equivalent to over a third of the total size of the United Kingdom) between 2000 and 2020.

“Today’s support for FSD Africa and the African Natural Capital Alliance will help influence investment decisions and mobilise private finance to protect and restore this landscape.

“FSD Africa will work with Central African regulators, banks and insurers to apply the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures for identifying, assessing and disclosing nature-related risks and opportunities and develop a regional roadmap for adopting it.

“Through ANCA, the continent’s leading platform for nature-positive finance, we will connect institutions to share learning and help build a pipeline of high-integrity investments that draws private capital into the region’s natural assets.”

UK Government and FSD Africa partner to unlock investment for women-led businesses in Nigeria

Posted on by Riitho

USD 335,000 investment will help Rising Tide Africa bring women entrepreneurs and investors together, with the aim of attracting USD 2.7 million over the next three years.

 

Lagos, Nigeria, 28 October 2026. FSD Africa, with funding from the UK Government through the British High Commission in Nigeria, has committed US$335,000 (approximately £247,000) to establish the RiTA Investment Network, a new platform designed to increase investment in women-led businesses in Nigeria.

Established by Rising Tide Africa, a women-led, pan-African network of angel investors, the platform aims to mobilise US$2.7 million (approximately ₦3.75 billion) from Nigerian investors, including high-net-worth individuals, angel investors and family offices. The investment will target 15 small and growing women-led businesses across Nigeria, helping them access the capital they need to expand.

Nigeria’s small and growing businesses are an important part of the economy, but many struggle to access the finance they need to grow. The IFC estimates that Nigeria’s small businesses face a financing gap of around ₦13 trillion, with 19 in 20 unable to access formal finance. The challenge is particularly acute for women entrepreneurs, who own around 40% of Nigeria’s small businesses but are rejected for credit at more than three times the rate of men.

For many women, the barrier is not their ability to build successful businesses or repay loans, but a lack of assets, such as land, that banks traditionally require as security.

Speaking while announcing the investment, Head of Green Growth and Private Sector Development at the British High Commission, Paul Healey noted that this initiative forms part of the UK Government’s broader support to expand access to finance for promising small and growing businesses.

He said: “Women entrepreneurs are building successful businesses across Nigeria, but many still face barriers to accessing the investment they need to grow. This partnership between the UK Government, FSD Africa and Rising Tide Africa is changing that.

“Together, we are building stronger connections between women-led businesses and investors, creating opportunities for more businesses to start, grow, and thrive.

“The UK is proud to be part of this partnership, working together with talented entrepreneurs to create jobs and contribute to Nigeria’s economy. By building these connections now, we can open the door to even more investment in women-led businesses in the years ahead.”

 

Juliet Munro, Director for Early-Stage Finance at FSD Africa hailed the potential of the new investment at mobilising domestic capital and deploying it in priority areas to provide growth capital and to create employment,

“Nigeria does not lack capital. Women angel investors in Rising Tide Africa have shown for years that they will back women-led businesses with their own money. The RiTA Investment Network gives that capital the structure and instrument to grow, in Naira, and at scale.” noted Juliet.

 

Currency matters. Much of the growth capital available to African businesses is in US dollars. For businesses earning in Naira, dollar debt becomes more expensive every time the currency weakens. Nigeria has substantial private wealth that could finance these businesses in their own currency, but few channels exist to connect that wealth to smaller companies.

The RiTA Investment Network is designed to build that channel. Rising Tide Africa’s members have invested together for years and have backed 39 companies to date. The Network will turn that experience into a formal investment platform, with professional credit assessment, an investment committee, an advisory board, and the monitoring and reporting systems that investors need to commit capital with confidence. Investors choose the businesses they back, one transaction at a time. Finance will mainly take the form of revenue-based finance, where repayments rise and fall with business’s sales. This suits profitable businesses that lack collateral and do not want to give up ownership to equity investors.

Yemi Keri, GP, RiTA Investment Network, RiTA Investment Network Spokesperson welcomed the catalytic investment as a major boost in the Network’s ambition to raise USD 10 million in local currency to support women enterprises in the country.

“Women led businesses in Nigeria are growing, and they need lenders who understand how they work. We founded RiTA to give investors a disciplined way to lend to them, one business at a time. FSD Africa’s support lets us build the structure, the discipline and the data to do this at scale,” she said.

 

FSD Africa’s funding meets the cost of building this institution in its first three years, before it can sustain itself from fees. It pays for the team, legal structure, governance and systems that make local capital ready to invest. Rising Tide Africa has already secured around US$1.5 million in soft commitments from its network. For every dollar of FSD Africa funding, the Network aims to mobilise around eight dollars of Nigerian private capital. The partnership builds on a year of advisory work between FSD Africa and Rising Tide Africa, and forms part of FSD Africa’s wider partnership with the British High Commission to deepen early-stage finance in Nigeria.

The Network completed its first transaction in September 2026, a syndicated corporate note to Ororo Waste Management Limited. Two further businesses are now in structuring and due diligence. The long-term goal is larger. The track record built through the Network is intended to support Rising Tide Africa’s plan to launch a US$10 million, Naira denominated growth debt fund for businesses led by women, and to bring institutional investors into it. Along the way, Rising Tide Africa will produce resources that other first-time fund managers in Nigeria can use. These include a legal template for investing under the Investments and Securities Act 2025, a playbook for revenue-based finance in Naira, and credit performance data on businesses led by women. Together they aim to show that lending to these businesses is investable at scale, and to lower the cost for the next local manager to follow.

The RiTA Investment Network is part of FSD Africa’s Early-Stage Finance strategy to mobilise diverse pools of African capital for small and growing businesses. Alongside angel networks and private wealth, FSD Africa is working with corporates, local fund managers and institutional investors to build the channels that connect domestic capital to the businesses that need it.

 

About RiTA Investment Network

The RiTA Investment Network is an initiative of Rising Tide Africa that provides growth finance, mainly revenue-based finance, to small and growing businesses led by women in Nigeria’s real economy. It is led by Yemi Keri, one of the founders of Rising Tide Africa, and Irene Ochem, founder and CEO of AWIEF. Investors choose the transactions they back, and an investment committee reviews every deal.

Businesses led by women seeking growth finance can contact investments@risingtideafrica.com.

 

About Rising Tide Africa

Rising Tide Africa is a women-led, pan-African angel investment network founded in 2016. Its 122 members are senior women investors based in seven countries. Over the past decade, the network has backed 39 early-stage companies across fintech, healthtech, agritech, climate, proptech, edtech and essential services. Every investment includes hands-on support through Rising Tide Africa’s MINE model: Mentoring, Investment, Networking and Education.

Women investors across Africa and the diaspora are invited to apply for membership at rtamembership@risingtideafrica.com.

 

About AWIEF

AWIEF is a leading and award-winning pan-African organisation advancing women’s entrepreneurship and economic inclusion. Established since 2015, AWIEF has directly supported more than 6,500 female founders and entrepreneurs with enterprise development programmes, training, and mentorship while facilitating access to finance, markets and networks. Indirectly, AWIEF has reached and impacted millions through its annual AWIEF Conference, Exhibition and Awards – a flagship convening of women entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, government, and development partners from across Africa and globally. https://www.awieforum.org/

 

About FSD Africa

FSD Africa is a specialist development agency established in 2012 by the UK Government, working to make finance work for Africa’s future. Operating in over 30 African countries, FSD Africa mobilises finance that powers economic and social development while delivering environmental gains and building Africa’s resilience. Its Early-Stage Finance pillar works to build a financing ecosystem that enables the right kind of capital to reach small and growing businesses at the right time. FSD Africa is funded by the UK Government through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.

 

About the British High Commission in Nigeria

The British High Commission Nigeria represents the UK Government in Nigeria and works to advance the UK-Nigeria Strategic Partnership, a framework that deepens cooperation between both countries across economic growth, trade and investment, governance, security, climate, education, healthcare, innovation, security cooperation and diplomatic engagement.

 

Media Contacts

RiTA Investment Network: Aisha Farooq, Aisha.Farooq@risingtideafrica.com

FSD Africa: Kaara Wainaina on email address, kaara@fsdafrica.org

British High Commission: Ndidiamaka Eze, Comms Lead, Growth, Trade and Investment, Ndidiamaka.eze@fcdo.gov.uk

 

 

Nigeria unveils ten-year capital markets plan and national savings plan to raise US$ 56 billion to support the US$1 trillion economy ambition

Posted on by Riitho

New roadmap, developed with support from FSD Africa and the UK Government, aims to mobilise investment, deepen financial markets and strengthen Nigeria’s position as a regional financial hub.

 

Abuja, Nigeria, 19 October 2026: Nigeria has launched a ten-year roadmap to deepen its capital markets, mobilise domestic and international investment, and support its ambition to build a US$1 trillion economy by 2030. Also launched was a national savings plan. The Nigeria Capital Market Masterplan 2.0, covering 2026 to 2036, sets out reforms to create a more diverse, efficient and transparent market and strengthen Nigeria’s position as a regional financial hub.

The plans were launched at the Presidential Villa in Abuja by H.E. Kashim Shettima, Vice President alongside Taiwo Oyedele Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Peter Vowles, the United Kingdom (UK) High Commissioner to Nigeria, and Mark Napier, CEO, FSD Africa

The Masterplan was developed by Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with technical support from FSD Africa funded by the UK Government. Their support enabled the engagement of a consortium led by Genesis Analytics and Bourse Consult to support the development of the roadmap and its implementation framework.

Speaking at the event Dr. Emomotimi Agama, SEC Nigeria Director General hailed the master plan as one that will help Nigeria deepen Nigerian capital markets to the scale needed to finance the country’s ambitious economic goals. “Every great economy has, at its heart, a capital market that turns the savings of ordinary people into the factories, roads, homes and businesses that create jobs. Nigeria has the people, the enterprise and the ambition. What we are now building is a market to match them,” said the DG.

Emphasising the historic alignment of economic reforms and regulatory empowerment, Dr. Agama noted that the Master Plan was deliberately launched alongside the National Savings Scheme to harness home-grown resources for national development. “Savings are the raw material of investment, and a nation that saves through its own capital market builds with its own resources,” Dr. Agama added.

 

The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Pete Vowles, represented by Paul Healey, Head of Green Growth and Private Sector Development at the British High Commission, said:

“The UK is proud to have funded FSD Africa’s support for the development of Nigeria’s Capital Markets Masterplan 2.0. This ambitious, Nigerian-led reform will help mobilise more domestic and international investment and connect capital with commercial opportunities in businesses and infrastructure.

“Our support forms part of the wider UK and Nigeria’s Strategic Partnership, which has growth and jobs at its heart. By strengthening Nigeria’s capital markets and deepening links between our financial sectors, we can create new opportunities for investment, jobs and shared prosperity in both our countries.”

 

Mark Napier, CEO, FSD Africa lauded the master plan as key in guiding Nigeria’s ambitions to deepen her capital markets for greater growth and job creation. “Our support for Nigeria’s new Masterplan is grounded in the principle that capital markets need to work for the wider economy. With its scale and regional importance, Nigeria has a significant opportunity to mobilise more domestic and international capital towards businesses, infrastructure and sustainable growth”. He said

“We have seen how sustained capital market development can help create conditions for greater capital mobilisation. In Zambia and Ethiopia, our support to strengthen the country’s financial market architecture and address key regulatory and market constraints, helped lay the foundations for greater capital mobilisation, including into sectors such as renewable energy.” He added.

 

FSD Africa’s support has focused on strengthening the link between capital-market development and Nigeria’s wider economic priorities, including infrastructure, SME growth, financial inclusion and sustainable development.

NCMMP 2.0 seeks to position capital markets as a driver of wider economic transformation, helping to channel long-term capital towards national priorities including infrastructure, energy, climate resilience, SMEs, financial inclusion and job creation.

The plan sets out measurable ambitions to increase collective investment scheme assets under management from US$5.6 billion to US$56 billion over ten years, raise annual diaspora investment channelled into capital markets from US$4 billion to US$10 billion, and increase the share of institutional portfolios invested in non-sovereign assets from around 40% to 50%.

To support these ambitions, proposed reforms include measures making it easier for businesses and state governments to raise capital, expand retail and diaspora participation, attract more foreign institutional investors, strengthen sustainable finance, and support the development of digital and tokenised assets.

The Masterplan is structured around five pillars covering regulatory clarity and enforcement, modernising market infrastructure, broadening the range of issuers and financial instruments, diversifying the investor base, and strengthening institutional and professional capacity. Each pillar is supported by a sequenced implementation plan with clear ownership, timelines and measures of success.

It also builds on lessons from the previous Capital Market Masterplan, which supported a number of significant reforms while leaving areas for further progress. The earlier plan achieved an overall activity completion rate of 63%, with financial inclusion, regional integration, sustainable finance and the mobilisation of capital to priority sectors among the areas identified for continued progress.

The Masterplan also sets out ambitions to strengthen Nigeria’s regional role through greater cooperation with other African markets, cross-border capital raising and listing frameworks, and closer alignment with initiatives under the African Continental Free Trade Area.

 

Notes to editors:

For more information/ interview requests,

  1. At SEC Nigeria, please contact Efe Ebelo, Head, External Relations at eebelo@sec.gov.ng or Tony Iloka, SA to the Director General at tiloka@sec.gov.ng.
  2. At FSD Africa, please contact Kaara Wainaina, Senior Advocacy and Campaigns Manager at kaara@fsdafrica.org.

 

About SEC Nigeria

Securities and Exchange Commission, Nigeria is the apex regulator of the Nigerian capital markets that derives its mandate from the Investment and Securities Act (ISA) 2025. SEC Nigeria seeks to develop and regulate capital markets to ensure capital formation, protection of investors, maintenance of fair, efficient and transparent markets and reduction of systemic risks that will positively impact on the country’s national economic development.

For more information, please visit: https://sec.gov.ng/

 

About the British High Commission, Nigeria

The British High Commission Nigeria represents the UK Government in Nigeria and works to advance the UK-Nigeria Strategic Partnership, a framework that deepens cooperation between both countries across economic growth, trade and investment, governance, security, climate, education, healthcare, innovation, security cooperation and diplomatic engagement.

FSD Africa Investments Member Spotlight with Anne-Marie Chidzero, Chief Investments Officer

Posted on by Riitho

This article was first published on the Convergence website.

 

FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi) is a specialist financial sector investor. Established by FSD Africa and the United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, FSDAi invests patient, risk-bearing capital in financial intermediaries, facilities, and instruments that advance how the African financial system drives green, economic growth. To date, they have committed about  GBP 127 million across 21 investments.

We spoke with Anne-Marie Chidzero, Chief Investments Officer about how they approach blended finance, the lessons they have learned about measuring impact and success, gender considerations in FSDAi’s work, and more.

 

What are FSDAi’s key priorities and what are you focusing on right now?

A key priority for us is strengthening the core functions of Africa’s financial systems, particularly the financial infrastructure needed to mobilize the continent’s own institutional capital. Africa holds more than $4 trillion in local institutional savings, and this pool is growing rapidly. Yet it remains largely absent from productive private markets. A second priority is scaling finance for energy generation and distribution, the infrastructure that underpins sustainable growth, and nature-positive outcomes. In each case, our aim is to demonstrate a commercial case strong enough to attract further capital. Ultimately, we want to broaden the diversity and depth of capital allocators in our markets, from those serving small and growing businesses to larger institutional asset managers.

 

Tell us about your approach to blended finance and how it has evolved.

FSDAi uses its catalytic capital to assume early transaction risks, test new models, and mobilize third-party capital. These structures then enable markets to attract further capital for Africa’s sustained growth. For example, our first investment was in the Africa Local Currency Bond Fund (ALCB Fund). By anchoring local-currency bond issuances, the ALCB Fund draws domestic capital into the market while strengthening how local bond markets function.

We deploy catalytic capital for market-shaping transactions at the frontier of finance, and we use our position as an active investor to engage directly in the design of innovative financial instruments and structures that are mostly blended.

Our approach has evolved over time toward co-creating blended finance vehicles that meet the capital needs of the investors we aim to mobilize, such as domestic pension funds. We work backwards, asking what tenor, currency, governance standard, reporting, and risk allocation would make a vehicle investable for them, and how our capital can help address the obstacles that keep them out.

We also pay keen attention to replicability. A structure that cannot be replicated in other markets is a subsidy, not a market intervention. We work upstream with FSD Africa’s market-building teams on regulation, policy, and market infrastructure, so that the structures we invest in are supported by enabling environments.

 

FSDAi has featured in notable strategic transactions, including the Ci-Gaba Fund, ARM-Harith’s Climate Transition Fund, and, most recently, the Cape Water Performance-Based Bond. Tell us more about FSDAi’s role in these transactions.

In the Ci-Gaba Fund, we were a co-creator rather than simply an investor. Drawing on FSD Africa’s market-building work in Ghana, we helped design and underwrite a fund of funds that met Ghanaian pension regulatory requirements and governance standards, then anchored it with $7.5 million. The first close exceeded its $30 million target with more than two-thirds anchored by domestic pension funds, making it Ghana’s first private fund of funds built for domestic capital mobilization at scale.

For ARM-Harith’s Climate Transition Fund, our contribution was structural. Alongside the African Development Bank Group’s Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa, we provided a combined $20 million of catalytic capital to de-risk pension participation in Africa’s first integrated multi-currency blended finance platform for infrastructure equity; US dollars and local currency in a single vehicle, addressing the mismatch between hard-currency fund structures and local-currency project revenues.

In the Cape Water Performance-Based Bond, we committed ZAR 234 million as an anchor investor alongside the International Finance Corporation. That capital helped validate a highly novel structure, unlocked local pension funds and asset managers, and established a template other investors can reuse.

 

The transactions mentioned above are diverse; how do they reflect FSDAi’s investment approach and your objective to deepen capital markets across the continent?

While the instruments may seem unrelated – a fund of funds, an infrastructure equity platform, a listed bond – the thesis behind them is the same. Africa does not lack capital or investable activity, it lacks instruments that let domestic institutional money reach that activity on terms its own regulators and trustees will accept.

Each transaction adds a missing piece of market architecture. The Ci-Gaba Fund creates a governed channel for pension allocations into private markets in a country where those allocations barely existed. ARM-Harith’s Climate Transition Fund makes local-currency infrastructure equity possible, removing the currency mismatch that has kept pension funds out of the asset class. The Cape Water Performance-Based Bond places an independently verified environmental outcome inside a listed, senior unsecured instrument, opening a new asset class on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Deepening capital markets means widening the instrument set, broadening the investor base, and strengthening the intermediaries in between. That is why we accept the transaction costs of first-of-a-kind deals; going in first so that other investors can follow at a fraction of the effort.

 

What lessons have you learned about measuring the impact and evaluating the success of the blended finance transactions that you featured in?

Three lessons stand out. First, deal-level metrics such as jobs, hectares cleared, businesses financed, and people reached all matter but our real test is market change: did the structure get repeated, did new investors enter, did the regulator move, did the second transaction need less catalytic capital than the first?

Second, outcome definitions have to be bankable before they are agreed. The Cape Water Performance-Based Bond clearly demonstrates this. Linking investor returns to independently verified hectares of invasive alien plants cleared required the parties to settle measurement, verification, and dispute resolution at the structuring stage rather than after signing.

Third, is patience. Market-building effects lag financial returns by years, and claiming clean causality in a syndicated transaction is rarely credible. We rely on interim signals such as follow-on funds, second issuances, and replication by commercial arrangers instead. We also publish our reasoning behind these investments so others can judge it for themselves.

 

Do you apply a gender lens in your blended finance work? At what stage are gender considerations typically discussed?

FSDAi is intentional about applying gender as one of the lenses it uses to influence an inclusive financial system. We have invested in gender diverse teams that promote the role of women as allocators of capital, decision makers, and beneficiaries. Our Nyala Facility was built specifically to back alternative local capital providers that apply gender-lens investment strategies. That includes Aruwa Capital Management in Nigeria, Women’s Investment Club Capital in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire, Linea Capital in South Africa, and Iungo Capital in East Africa, where many of the businesses financed are expected to be founded, owned, or led by women.

Gender considerations are integrated at an early stage in our investment process. We apply the 2X Criteria on Women in Leadership to screen investments. When we see an opportunity to influence more diversity, we include such requirements in the environmental, social, and governance action plan and in the key conditions for our investment. Currently, over 80% of our investments meet the 2X Criteria on Leadership and we are committed to continuing to allocate more capital to blended vehicles that reflect the gender diversity that is needed across Africa’s financial markets.

 

The investment landscape across emerging markets has been volatile in recent years, especially with receding development funding. How is FSDAi adjusting to this?

In our view, the investment landscape has evolved. While Africa continues to be perceived as a high-risk investment destination, FSDAi’s work is fundamentally about addressing that risk by deepening financial markets. This means supporting better pricing of risk, improving the availability and quality of market data, strengthening financial allocation infrastructure, and helping to create the conditions for a lower cost of capital over time. That is the nature of our work: building the market foundations that allow capital to move more efficiently, confidently, and at scale.

 

How do you see FSDAi’s blended finance activities evolving in the future, and where do you see opportunities to continue deepening the impact of your work?

We see at least two directions of travel. The first is co-creating blended finance vehicles in thematic areas where the investment case needs to be built, nature-based solutions is the clearest example. The Cape Water Performance-Based Bond showed that ecological outcomes can be independently verified and priced inside a mainstream listed instrument. That template is not confined to water, or to South Africa, and the work now is adapting it to other ecosystems and other markets.

The second is anchoring country-specific vehicles designed around the regulatory requirements of domestic pension funds. The Ci-Gaba Fund in Ghana and ARM-Harith’s Climate Transition Fund in Nigeria both began from what trustees and regulators in those markets could approve, rather than from a structure imported wholesale. That approach takes longer, but it is the only route to allocations at scale.

Replicability is the discipline that connects the two. We prioritize vehicles that can be lifted into a second market with less catalytic capital than the first one required because a structure that works only once, and only with us in it, has not yet changed the market.

Jubilee Group, FSD Africa partner with BimaLab Insurtechs to expand insurance access in Kenya

Posted on by Riitho

Seven insurtech firms will develop new insurance solutions for underserved SMEs, informal workers, farmers and low-income households, with pilots set to begin in November

NAIROBI, Kenya, 22 September 2026 – Jubilee Group and FSD Africa have partnered with seven insurtech companies to develop and test affordable insurance solutions for underserved Kenyans, targeting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), informal sector workers, farmers and low-income households that have limited access to formal insurance.

The seven firms – Dukatech Solutions, Aura Insure Technologies, Inclusivity Solutions, DPE, Fiinovate, Agrails and Ibisa Network – will work with Jubilee through an eight-week product co-creation process before joint pilots begin in Kenya in November 2026.

The partnership will test new ways to distribute affordable insurance, provide protection for SMEs and connect customers to health and wellness services. Successful solutions could later be introduced in other East African markets as Jubilee works to expand its customer base and access to its integrated financial services offering.

East Africa is estimated to have more than 10 million SMEs, which account for over 70% of jobs, yet insurance penetration among the segment averages about 1%. For many small businesses and households, illness, extreme weather or another financial shock can quickly affect livelihoods and business income.

Jubilee Group Deputy Group CEO Juan Cazcarra said, “There is a large group of Kenyans who work, earn and run businesses every day but still have little or no insurance coverage. We need to meet people where they are, with products that are affordable, relevant and simple to access. Working with these seven insurtechs gives us a practical way to test different products and distribution models with customers and learn what works. We can then take the strongest solutions to scale as we grow our customer base and bring more people into formal insurance.”

 

The seven companies were selected through a competitive process from the BimaLab Africa Insurtech Accelerator alumni network. Their work with Jubilee will focus on three priority areas: low-cost bundled and embedded insurance distribution; insurance solutions for SME ecosystems; and wellness and engagement models that connect customers to health and care services.

Elias Omondi, Principal, Sustainable Insurance at FSD Africa said: “The challenge is not simply creating more insurance products. It is making sure those products reach people who need them, at a price they can afford and through channels they already use. Kenya provides a strong market for testing new approaches to inclusive insurance. By bringing established insurers together with insurtechs that understand technology, distribution and specific customer needs, BimaLab can help move promising ideas from development into real markets.”

 

At Jubilee, the work will be led through J-Hub, the Group’s innovation and technology arm, which focuses on developing, testing and deploying digital and AI-powered solutions across the business.

 

Notes to the editor

For more information and interview requests,

  1. At FSD Africa, please write to Kaara Wainaina, Senior Manager Advocacy and Campaigns on email address, kaara@fsdafrica.org
  2. At Jubilee Group, please write to Anne Njoroge on email Njoroge@jubileekenya.com

 

About Bimalab

BimaLab Africa is an insurtech accelerator innovating insurance to build resilience for Africa’s underserved. An initiative of FSD Africa, BimaLab backs high impact insurtech innovators closing a protection gap that leaves more than 97% of the continent uninsured providing mentorship, regulatory access, funding, and strategic partnerships, alongside one of Africa’s strongest insurance networks. Over the past 6 years, BimaLab has supported 135 startups across 28 African countries to develop more than 300 insurance solutions, now reaching over 6.5 million underserved customers. Together, BimaLab is building an African insurance sector that rewards innovation and channels protection to where it is needed most. Learn more at bimalab.org.

 

About FSD Africa

FSD Africa is a specialist development agency making finance work for Africa’s future. We work with governments, regulators, and financial institutions across 30 countries to strengthen markets, shape policy, and mobilise capital into opportunities supporting growth, climate resilience, the clean energy transition, and nature-positive development. Supported by the UK Government alongside philanthropic and development partners, we also deploy catalytic capital through our investment arm, FSD Africa Investments. For more information, please visit: https://www.fsdafrica.org

 

About Jubilee Holdings

Jubilee Holdings Limited, founded in 1937, is one of East Africa’s leading financial services groups, with over 89 years of experience in delivering insurance and investment solutions. The Group is trusted for its financial strength, innovation, and customer focus, serving more than 1.4 million customers and beneficiaries across Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi.

 

About J-Hub

J-Hub is the Group’s innovation and technology arm, established to accelerate the development and deployment of transformative digital solutions across the business. It focuses on building AI-powered financial inclusion platforms, embedded insurance solutions, and next-generation digital distribution capabilities that enhance customer experience and access.

Through its work, J-Hub positions Jubilee Holdings Limited as a forward-looking and disruptive leader in financial services, championing innovation, inclusion, and financial wellness across Africa.

 

The seven selected companies bring different technologies, customer networks and insurance models to the programme

  • Dukatech Solutions, through its Shopokoa platform, is a Nairobi-based social protection platform serving waste pickers, refugees and informal sector workers with curated food and shopping baskets. It will test bundled and embedded insurance distribution through its existing customer and merchant network.
  • Aura Insure Technologies is a Dubai-based insurtech expanding into Africa with software-as-a-service underwriting and distribution tools for SMEs. Its APIs allow insurers and partners to quote, underwrite, onboard, issue, service and renew insurance covers digitally.
  • Inclusivity Solutions, headquartered in Cape Town and operating in more than 10 African countries, designs embedded insurance for emerging consumers. Its open API platform, ASPin, supports sales, policy administration, premium collection and claims.
  • DPE is a Kenyan health engagement platform that helps health systems reach households through SMS, WhatsApp and voice channels. Its Interch™ platform has supported access to trusted health information for more than 300,000 households and will contribute to Jubilee’s wellness and engagement workstream.
  • Fiinovate is a Kenyan fintech developing credit-linked insurance solutions through its FinHub and Fin Shield platforms. It will explore protection products that strengthen financial resilience for SMEs and borrowers.
  • Agrails is a Kenyan generative AI and parametric platform operating in more than three African countries. It uses climate data analysis, reporting and verification to improve climate-risk assessment and will explore embedded protection models linked to climate intelligence.
  • Ibisa Network, headquartered in Luxembourg and operating across Africa, develops parametric insurance products for farmers and renewable energy operators. It uses satellite data and AI-driven analytics to support automated payouts following extreme weather events.

Africa’s green transition will employ millions of women. That is not the same as empowering them.

Posted on by Riitho

Africa’s green transition is projected to generate tens of millions of jobs by mid-century, many of them for women, according to new research commissioned by FSD Africa, Shell Foundation and Shortlist. But, while that might sound like progress the reality, says Tokunboh Ishmael, Managing Director and co-founder of Alitheia Capital and a board member of FSD Africa, is that without concerted action this will do little for women’s empowerment.

Writing for Ecofin, Ishmael makes the case that women’s rising participation in green sectors like clean cooking, off-grid solar and waste recycling is masking a deeper problem: they are being concentrated in the lowest-paid, least protected, most precarious tiers of these value chains, while technical and supervisory roles remain overwhelmingly male. Addressing this imbalance is not just a matter of fairness but of returns, she argues.

When Africa talks about its green transition, it counts megawatts, tons of carbon avoided, and dollars mobilized, but new research commissioned by FSD Africa, Shell Foundation, and Shortlist has now given us a number for something we often miss: people. Africa’s green transition could generate up to 7.9 million jobs by 2030, and up to 84.5 million by 2050.

But there is another number that should interest anyone allocating capital on this continent. By 2030, women are projected to hold 31 percent of green jobs, rising to 44 percent by 2050. While it is tempting to read that as progress, it is not. 31 percent is below women’s current share of the workforce, and the report suggests it is a gap that remains entrenched.

I have spent close to twenty years investing in African businesses, the last decade of it through an explicitly gender-lens fund, and I have learned to be suspicious of headcount. Counting women is not the same as including them.

Across all three countries studied in the report, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, women are concentrated in commission-based sales, community distribution, and subsistence micro-trading. Men, meanwhile, dominate the technical, field-based, and formally contracted positions where earnings and progression actually live. So, we are on course to build a green economy that hires millions of women into work that is unskilled, low-paid, and unprotected. That is being called inclusion, and it is not an accident of culture. It is a consequence of design, and a huge transformative opportunity missed.

The reasons lie in the fact that, unlike other regions, Africa’s transition will be driven by decentralized, service-led industries such as clean cooking, off-grid solar, waste recycling, and electric mobility, rather than by large infrastructure projects. Those value chains have the lowest barriers to entry, which is precisely why they are the most accessible to women.

But the same distributed, low-capital delivery models that let women in also channel them into the segments with the weakest job quality. The report found that 86 percent of the green jobs projected for 2030 will be informal. Labor protections designed for formal workers will reach at most 14 percent of that workforce.

When we look at the root causes of this imbalance, one thing stands out: there simply isn’t the focus on training and development needed to move women up the employment value chain. For instance, women make up just 15 percent of certified solar PV trainees, and female enrolment in technical programs rarely exceeds one in five.

Nor is this just a problem confined to women. Only 6.5 percent of young people in Africa have completed a technical and vocational program. Meanwhile, deployment increasingly requires skills such as remote monitoring of distributed assets and battery management. Yet none of the three countries studied has national training programs for these roles at meaningful scale, let alone ones that women can access.

The report warns that without a skilled local workforce, green projects could stall, rely on imported expertise, and struggle to deliver local economic benefits. The scale of the gap is stark. While the continent holds 60% of the world’s best solar resources, it accounts for just 2% of the world’s renewable energy workforce. That shows just how much the skills deficit could be holding us back.

Investment in training alone will not fix this. But the report finds that where local governments and industry have also addressed barriers such as childcare at TVET institutions, female participation and completion have measurably improved.

This is not charity, and it is not about compliance. It is smart economics. Women are producers, distributors, owners, and customers in exactly the value chains this transition depends on. Most clean cooking and solar home system customers are women, which is why distribution works when the agent looks like the customer. Refusing to invest in their skills is leaving money on the table.

In our own portfolio, I have seen how small the fix can be and how large the return. We have walked into factories as recently as 2020 where there were women on the line, yet no women’s restrooms. Poor lighting also made parts of the plant feel unsafe.

When we insist on fixing those things, and on employee share ownership, we are not running a welfare program. We are raising the bar for the whole workforce, men included. When you improve conditions for the people who make your product and serve your customer, you get a better product and better service. That is the return.

A 2024 report by Mastercard Foundation and McKinsey estimated that young women’s fuller economic participation could create 23 million jobs and add up to $287 billion to Africa’s economy by 2030. This is a five percent boost to GDP.

Their more sobering finding was that young women’s contribution to Africa’s GDP has gone backward, from 18 percent in 2000 to 11 percent in 2022. So, while we congratulate ourselves on participation rates, the trend is running against us.

What should those of us who allocate capital do? Stop treating workforce development as someone else’s line item and write gender covenants into deal conditions from the outset rather than as afterthoughts. Earmark a defined share of deployment capital for skills.

Fund the things that convert training into credentials and credentials into progression: recognition of prior learning for informal technicians, micro-credentials tied to national qualification levels, paid attachments rather than unpaid ones, childcare at training institutions, safe transportation for field roles, and women-only cohorts with employer-guaranteed placement.

Give micro-distributors the working capital to move off commission-only tiers, because women exit informal green roles at disproportionately higher rates when there is no progression pathway.

And change what we measure. Not how many women, but where they sit: who receives technical training, who moves from frontline sales into installation and maintenance, who advances into management, who owns the suppliers, and who earns more.

Africa cannot finance infrastructure and leave the workforce to chance. We have one chance to build these value chains from something close to scratch.

If we invest in the women who will run them, in their technical skills, their credentials, their conditions, and their ownership, the green transition could be the most powerful engine of women’s economic empowerment this continent has ever had. If we do not, we will have spent a great deal of money hiring tens of millions of women into the bottom of a new economy that looks remarkably like the old one.

 

By Tokunboh Ishmael, Managing Director and co-founder of Alitheia Capital, and FSD Africa Board member.

FSD Africa launches manager finance facility to unlock capital for local investment and growth businesses

Posted on by Riitho

Nairobi & Lagos, 17 September 2026 – FSD Africa today launched the Manager Finance Facility (MFF), a new initiative designed to strengthen Africa’s emerging generation of alternative local capital providers and help unlock more appropriate financing for small and growing businesses across the continent.

The Facility is being launched with support from FMO, the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank and the UK Government’s Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) Nigeria. FMO’s contribution to this facility is supported through the Investing in Young Businesses in Africa (IYBA) programme, a Team Europe Initiative funded by the European Commission to strengthen market creation efforts and improve access to finance for young and early‑stage businesses across key African. Additional funding partners are expected to join the Facility as it grows.

Africa’s small and growing businesses (SGBs) are a critical engine of employment, innovation and sustainable economic development, yet many remain underserved by traditional financial institutions because of high transaction costs, rigid collateral requirements and perceptions of risk. At the same time, emerging Alternative Local Capital Providers (ALCPs) are developing new ways to finance these businesses yet frequently face a financing constraint of their own.

The Manager Finance Facility “MFF” has been created to address this gap. By providing catalytic, returnable grant capital to these ALCPs, it enables them to test and validate innovative financing models, build credible investment track records, strengthen their operations and ultimately become investable at scale.

These providers are developing financing approaches including revenue-based finance, flexible equity, venture debt, blended finance and local-currency structures that can better align with the cashflow and growth realities of African businesses than conventional financing products.

 

“We need to finance the financiers. Across Africa, we are seeing a new generation of locally rooted capital providers developing innovative ways of financing businesses that traditional financial institutions are not reaching. But these providers need capital themselves to prove their models, build their institutions and develop the track records that investors require. The MFF is designed to bridge this gap – helping promising providers move from experimentation towards scale, channelling more – and more appropriate – capital to African businesses in the longer-term.” said Juliet Munro, Early-Stage Director, FSD Africa.

 

Building Africa’s next generation of locally based capital providers

The MFF will provide support through two principal forms of catalytic capital, both designed as flexible, returnable capital rather than conventional grants:

Piloting Capital will enable ALCPs to test innovative financing models, execute early transactions, demonstrate commercial viability and build the investment track records required to attract larger pools of capital.

Operational Capital will provide working capital to support core teams, systems, governance and compliance while ALCPs raise investment capital and move towards financially sustainable operations.

Alongside capital, providers supported through the Facility will have access to FSD Africa’s wider capacity-strengthening and peer-learning initiatives, covering aspects such as governance, ESG, impact measurement, valuation and fundraising. Data and knowledge generated through the Facility will also contribute to wider market intelligence and evidence about this important financing sector.

The ambition therefore extends beyond financing individual ALCPs.  The Facility seeks to demonstrate that a diverse generation of African-led providers can develop into a credible and investable asset class, capable of attracting catalytic, private and ultimately institutional capital.

 

Mobilising capital alongside FCDO Nigeria and FMO

The MFF’s launch brings together FSD Africa, FMO, and FCDO Nigeria around a shared objective of strengthening the institutions capable of deploying capital to underserved African businesses.

 

“Africa’s small and growing businesses need financing solutions that reflect how they operate and grow. By backing locally rooted capital providers with catalytic capital, the Manager Finance Facility will help promising models establish a track record, strengthen their institutions and become ready for larger pools of investment. This is how we can build a stronger pipeline of investable businesses and mobilise more private and institutional capital into underserved African markets.” Andrew Shaw, Manager Market Creation Financial Inclusion, FMO.

 

“Unlocking Nigeria’s economic potential requires financing solutions that work for its entrepreneurs and growing businesses. The UK is proud to support the Nigeria window of the Manager Finance Facility which will strengthen locally rooted capital providers, mobilise further private investment and support Nigeria’s sustainable economic transformation. It forms part of UK’s wider partnership with Nigeria to increase investment, create jobs and deliver mutual growth.” Temilola Akinrinade, Investment & Capital Markets Lead, FCDO Nigeria and delivered through the British High Commission in Nigeria.

 

FSD Africa intends the MFF to operate as a platform through which additional catalytic investors can participate in building Africa’s alternative SGB capital ecosystem. Further funding partners will be onboarded and announced as the Facility develops.

This approach builds on FSD Africa’s experience of using catalytic capital, technical assistance and ecosystem development to test financing models, strengthen local investment capability and crowd additional public, private and development capital into underserved markets.

 

Applications open to alternative local capital providers

Applications to the MFF opened for Nigeria-based ALCPs on 1 September 2026. Applications from other eligible African markets opens on 17 September 2026.

The Facility is particularly interested in emerging ALCPs developing innovative investment models, including approaches incorporating climate resilience and gender-smart strategies.

Successful applicants will progress through an assessment process covering their financing model, proposed use of MFF support, institutional needs, risk assessment and due diligence before approval, contracting and disbursement.

Ultimately, the MFF aims to create a multiplier effect across Africa’s financial markets: stronger, locally based capital providers, more investable businesses, increased employment, and more resilient and inclusive economies.

 

About FMO 

FMO is the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank. As a leading impact investor, FMO supports sustainable private sector growth in developing countries and emerging markets by investing in ambitious projects and entrepreneurs. FMO believes that a strong private sector leads to economic and social development and has a 55+ year proven track record in empowering entrepreneurs to make local economies more inclusive, productive, resilient and sustainable. FMO focuses on three sectors that have high development impact: Agribusiness, Food & Forestry, Energy, and Financial Institutions. With a total committed portfolio of EUR ~16 billion spanning over 85 countries, FMO is one of the larger bilateral private sector development banks globally. For more information: please visit www.fmo.nl.

 

About the UK’s FCDO

The FCDO is the UK government department responsible for diplomacy, international development and consular services worldwide. In Nigeria, FCDO programmes are delivered through the British High Commission and support the UK–Nigeria partnership across economic growth, trade and investment, development, security and other shared priorities.

 

Media enquiries

Kaara Wainaina, Senior Communications Manager, FSD Africa
Kaara@fsdafrica.org

Investing at the edge of market formation

Posted on by Riitho

Africa is not short of capital. Between its sovereign wealth funds, pension funds, insurers and banks, the continent holds an estimated $4 trillion in domestic savings.

The difficulty is what carries it. As our Chief Investment Officer Anne-Marie Chidzero told the Allocator Media Podcast, African financial systems lack sufficient “pipes and filters and turbines” to move that money to where it is needed, equity for infrastructure, disaster-risk cover for smallholder farmers, aggregation vehicles that make small businesses investable at institutional scale.

Building those pipes is what FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi) was created to do. FSDAi the fund takes on early-stage risk that commercial investors will not, then works to make the resulting instrument replicable.

In the episode, Anne-Marie discusses the first African outcome-based conservation bond, the infrastructure equity fund structured with ARM-Harith so that Nigerian pension funds could participate, and the Africa Local Currency Bond Fund, where the mobilisation multiplier runs at roughly 10 to 1.

She is also candid about the limits. FSDAi has withdrawn from an investment during the approval process on finding that the market had developed its own appetite, and she is direct about how hard mobilisation is to attribute honestly.

 

“It takes patience… It takes a patient investor and it takes strong partnerships.” Anne-Marie Chidzero

 

Listen to the full conversation:

Spotify  •  Apple Podcasts

African capital market leaders convene in Nairobi to help unlock US$4 trillion in domestic capital for development and climate resilience

Posted on by Riitho

Nairobi, 15 September 2026 – More than 300 policymakers, regulators, institutional investors, development finance leaders and market practitioners from over 20 African countries are gathering in Nairobi this week for the third Sustainable Capital Markets Conference, organised by FSD Africa and partners. The conference comes at a pivotal moment as African countries seek to mobilise domestic capital to finance development priorities, with overseas funding drying up, slowing foreign investment and mounting fiscal pressures.

The shift of focus to domestic capital markets is also informed by low market activity, with fewer than half of African countries having seen a domestic firm issue a corporate bond since 2000. Whereas the continent’s domestic equity markets have grown 27-fold since 2000 to USD 561 billion, its share of global capital market activity has declined, indicating that its growth is not keeping pace internationally.

With African institutional investors now managing an estimated US$4 trillion across pension funds, insurance companies, banks and sovereign wealth funds, discussions will focus on how to channel greater volumes of domestic capital into productive sectors that support economic growth, resilience and job creation. Despite significant financing needs, only 2.7% of institutional assets are currently invested in infrastructure and other productive sectors across the continent.

The conference will bring together some of the continent’s leading voices in capital markets, sustainable finance, debt management and investment mobilisation to explore practical solutions for developing deeper, more efficient and more inclusive capital markets. Among confirmed speakers are:

  • Chris Olobo, Chief Executive Officer, Dhamana Guarantee
  • Jonathan Stichbury, Chief Executive Officer, SanlamAllianz Investments
  • Albert Rweyemamu, Principal Political& Credit Risk Underwriter, ATIDI
  • Mark Napier, Chief Executive Officer, FSD Africa
  • Japhet Justine, Commissioner, Public Debt Management, Ministry of Finance
  • Daniel Mainda, Chief Executive Officer, Nairobi International Financial Centre Authority
  • Gerald Soko, Head of Economic Research, Zanaco
  • Babatunde Obaniyi, Group CEO, Griffin Capital Financial Group
  • Kofi D. Fynn, Managing Director, Petra Trust Company
  • Dr Evans Osao, Chief Financial Markets Officer, FSD Africa
  • Yodit Kassa, CEO, Ethiopia Stock Exchange
  • Nicholas Kebaso, CEO, Lusaka Stock Exchange

Themes under discussion will include sustainable finance, domestic capital mobilisation, blended finance, sovereign debt management, catalytic transactions, institutional investment, market development and innovative financing approaches needed to close Africa’s widening development financing gap.

The conference takes place against the backdrop of growing demand for long-term investment capital across Africa. The continent’s rapidly growing population generates approximately 25 million new job seekers annually, while governments face increasing pressure to invest in infrastructure, energy, business growth and climate resilience. At the same time, many countries continue to grapple with high debt servicing costs, making the development of robust domestic capital markets increasingly important. Delegates will hear about practical strategies for accelerating capital market development, including:

  1. Strengthening market infrastructure, regulatory frameworks and investment products.
  2. Expanding sustainable finance instruments, including green, gender and thematic bonds.
  3. Structuring catalytic transactions that crowd in private capital.
  4. Supporting effective sovereign debt management and market transparency.
  5. Mobilising institutional capital for infrastructure and productive sectors.

The conference aims to move beyond dialogue to action with several concrete deliverables including:

  1. An Africa Capital Markets Roadmap setting out a shared vision, collective priorities and practical commitments for accelerating the development of deeper, more efficient and more inclusive capital markets across the continent.
  2. A roadmap for capital mobilisation, including agreed actions to strengthen domestic resource mobilisation through priority financing structures, public-private partnerships, regulatory reforms and innovative investment vehicles.
  3. New pathways for unlocking Africa’s US$4 trillion institutional capital pool, with a focus on increasing investment into infrastructure, climate resilience, energy transition projects, MSMEs and other productive sectors of the real economy.

 

For information and interview requests, please write to our Senior Communications Manager Kaara Wainaina at kaara@fsdafrica.org/.

Behind the Investment: Africa’s first dedicated inclusive insurance venture fund

Posted on by Riitho

3iF Ventures is the first dedicated inclusive insurance venture fund set up for Africa’s insurance start-up ecosystem. On 5 June 2026 3iF Ventures announced a first close of USD 12 million, co-anchored by FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi) and ZEP-Re (PTA Reinsurance Company), deploying equity from pre-seed to Series B into technology-enabled businesses solving the continent’s insurance protection gap, with a pathway to a USD 30 million final close.

 

The market failure

Africa has a protection gap of staggering proportions. Over one billion people on the continent have no access to any form of insurance cover. The challenge is not simply one of low incomes. Three persistent structural barriers have long blocked uptake: awareness, accessibility, and affordability. Potential customers do not know insurance exists for their needs, cannot access it through familiar channels, and often cannot afford the products that are available.

The result is that large numbers of African households and small businesses remain entirely exposed to shocks such as illness, crop failure, asset loss and extreme weather that keep them locked in poverty or prevent them from investing and growing.

The insurtech sector has the potential to solve this at scale. However, it has attracted only fragmented capital: grants and early-stage philanthropic funding, with little institutional-grade venture investment. The infrastructure needed to back insurance innovators from inception through to Series B simply did not exist. That is the market failure 3iF Ventures was designed to correct.

 

What 3iF Ventures does differently

3iF Ventures is structured as a blended investment vehicle. It includes a catalytic capital junior tranche designed to absorb early risk and unlock participation from commercial investors who require a more conventional risk-return profile. Alongside its investment activity, the fund will operate a technical assistance facility sized at approximately 20 percent of total commitments — a deliberate recognition that early-stage insurance businesses need more than capital: they need product design support, regulatory navigation, and access to networks of primary insurers and reinsurers.

The fund’s investment thesis is organised around four thematic verticals: climate and disaster resilience; agriculture and rural livelihoods; digital health and wellbeing; and SMEs and asset protection. These categories correspond directly to the types of shock from which African households and businesses are most exposed and for which conventional insurance markets have offered the least.

3iF Ventures targets approximately 15 to 20 portfolio investments across African markets. It enters the market with a pre-qualified pipeline of 15 insurance ventures from 10 African countries that have already been assessed and are ready for capital deployment. That pipeline has been built, in significant part, through FSD Africa’s BimaLab Accelerator, which has supported 135 early-stage insurance businesses across the continent. 3iF Ventures, in this sense, is not starting from scratch. It is the institutional vehicle that turns years of market-building into deployable capital.

 

“3iF Ventures was conceived around the observation that scaling an insurtech takes capital plus operational support in equal measure. The junior tranche absorbs the early risk that has historically kept commercial investors out, and the technical assistance facility gives founders product design, regulatory navigation, and distribution reach alongside their equity. Just as important is the potential for partnerships with established insurers and reinsurers, which bring underwriting rigour and balance-sheet capacity to ventures building for scale, while those ventures give incumbents a route into new markets. That exchange is what lets a business move from inception through to Series B.”  Kweku Anyane-Lah, Investments Associate, FSDAi

 

Why FSDAi moved first

FSDAi committed to 3iF Ventures as one of its co-anchoring investors. That commitment served three distinct purposes.

The first was validation. Co-anchoring a first-of-its-kind fund signals to the broader market that the fund’s structure, governance, investment thesis, and management team have been assessed. That signal matters enormously in a first close, where the absence of a track record means that anchor investors are, in effect, lending credibility as much as capital.

The second was continuity. FSD Africa’s BimaLab Accelerator has built a strong pipeline of early-stage insurance businesses. Without a dedicated venture fund to receive those companies as they graduate from acceleration and need equity capital, much of that pipeline would remain commercially stranded. FSDAi’s investment in 3iF Ventures closes that loop.

The third was replicability. By co-anchoring alongside ZEP-Re, a leading reinsurer with operations in 45 African countries, FSDAi is demonstrating that a credible, commercially structured vehicle for inclusive insurance investment is achievable. Each successive close and successful portfolio company builds the evidence base that makes the asset class easier for other investors to enter.

 

” We anchored 3iF Ventures to prove the market while solving for the three barriers that have long defined Africa’s protection gap: awareness, accessibility, and affordability. The fund is a continuation of BimaLab, which has built a pipeline of innovative insurtechs addressing exactly those problems. 3iF Ventures bridges the critical early-stage funding gap these ventures face. Anchoring alongside ZEP-Re allows us to partner with an experienced incumbent and together support a manager to prove out the market. ” May Yego, Investment Manager, FSDAi

 

What this opens up

Over its lifetime, 3iF Ventures targets the issuance of over 5.9 million new insurance policies, improved financial resilience for over 3.5 million households and SMEs, and the creation, sustaining, or retention of over 1.7 million jobs. For a first fund of USD 30 million, these are significant outcomes and reflect the leverage that well-structured insurtech investments can generate.

What 3iF Ventures ultimately opens up is a new asset class. There is no comparable vehicle on the continent today. Its existence makes the next one easier to build, and the one after that easier still.

—

About this series

Behind the Investment is FSDAi’s series on the decisions, structures, and signals behind our capital. Each post takes a single investment and unpacks the market gap it addresses, the thesis we underwrote, the risks we accepted, and the change we expect it to catalyse across Africa’s financial markets.

Contact: Joyce Waihiga, Manager, FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi).