Our Investment Approach

Afrishela is a $30M investment vehicle deploying blended early growth stage mezzanine financing with a gender lens.

We employ the use of blended finance by providing post-investment technical assistance alongside the investment capital, applying a gender lens throughout the investment process. We employ a milestone based approach to investing.

We target the missing middle entrepreneur segment by focusing on early growth stage women-owned and led businesses with robust and scalable models, providing innovative, responsive financing through mezzanine structures. Equity deals are considered on a case by case basis. We target businesses with robust and scalable models, gendered solutions, processes and policies operating in in a variety of growth-oriented sectors. Our deal sizes range from $20K – $500K with an average of $300K. Larger deals are considered for co-investment on a case by case basis.

Sectors

Our sector approach is to increase power and influence in the sectors where women are prevalent like agriculture and education but also elevate and increase the visibility and track record of women in male dominated sectors like energy and manufacturing. We are keen on the use of innovation and technology as an enabler and the climate adaptation of business models across our portfolio.

Priority Sectors Focus:

Agriculture

More than 60% of all employed women in Africa south of the Sahara work in agriculture which is 2-4 times more effective in reducing poverty than growth in other sectors.

Manufacturing

Most women-owned manufacturing businesses are MSMEs and operate in the informal sector – They also offer customized solutions to the underserved female segment which provides a great opportunity to drive gender impact directly and through advocacy as well as build and strengthen local supply chains.

Education

Upskilling of women and girls prepares them to increase their participation in economic activities now and in the future. Africa’s young demographic and growing population (with sub-Saharan Africa likely to account for more than half of the growth of the world’s population between 2019 and 2050) provides an opportunity for education to play an essential role in engaging youth productively and improving power dynamics.

Health

There is an estimated health financing gap of US$66 billion per annum in Africa. Women are the largest purchasers of healthcare worldwide offering a huge market for targeted health products and represent nearly 70% of health workers globally. There is also a huge potential for revenue generation and attractive returns around innovative solutions in health care.

Financial Services

Women represent around 56% of the financially excluded population globally while more than 70% of the African Women are excluded by the financial institutions or are unable to receive financial services, representing a huge underserved market. Use of technology offers opportunities to widen access to financial services for women as well as deepen the capital markets. There is potential to offer diversity through wealth protection and management products along a wide spectrum from informal to retail and institutional offering.

Country Focus:

We target countries with supportive macro-economic environments and a depth of women entrepreneurship, prioritizing countries based on GMT’s Pan-African presence, and the activity of women entrepreneurs in those countries through in-country networks and our programmatic interventions identified as:

  • Kenya
  • Tanzania
  • Rwanda
  • Uganda
  • Zambia
  • South Africa

Our unique value proposition:

Our dynamic approach that uses responsive and innovative financing structures that offer flexible payment schedules, initial grace periods and structured exits that are well suited to early growth stage and women owned/led enterprises in terms of supporting business growth, capital repayments and non-dilution of capital. The application of an alternative credit risk assessment process takes into account women’s limited access to collateral and therefore increases access to risk capital for early growth stage women businesses. Our unique investment strategy that blends investment capital with post-investment technical assistance drives growth and value creation as well as gendered impact outcomes.

Our use of self-liquidating structures supports ease of exits and greater liquidity for investors. Our demonstrated thought leadership within the ecosystem around gender lens investing along with our Pan-African focus supported by a locally rooted team with strong ecosystem relationships and deep networks of women entrepreneurs across the continent supports our social capital and ability to drive gender impact.