Small Foundation invests in Capria Ventures
Small Foundation, a philanthropic foundation focused on catalysing income-generating opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa, has invested in a hybrid debt facility with global investment firm Capria Ventures. Both entities will work closely to advance enterprise-led economic development and foster technological innovation in the region.
Conor Brosnan, CEO of Small Foundation says, “Supporting highly leveraged opportunities to drive sustained impact in sub-Saharan Africa is at the core of Small Foundation’s work. We value mission-aligned partners like Capria who help unlock access to finance for local fund managers across the African continent. We are pleased to support Capria’s goal of overcoming the multi-layered challenge of establishing financial intermediaries in complex economic systems across sub-Saharan Africa. This investment will help enterprises in sub-Saharan Africa have access to funding, enabling them to create jobs and opportunities across the continent.”
Jack Knellinger, partner at Capria Ventures highlights, “Our relationship with Small Foundation began in 2018, when Small helped Capria establish an office in Nairobi. Since then, Capria has been constantly on the lookout for strong fund managers in sub-Saharan Africa. Small Foundation and Capria Ventures have sealed a decade-long pact to further mutual objectives in the African continent, which is to invest and support the growth of emerging fund managers, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa.” He adds, “The funds will be utilised to scale up operations in Africa as well as to increase the global footprint of our firm.”
To further strengthen expertise in the Africa, Susana Garcia Robles has joined Capria Ventures as senior partner and will be bringing her expertise to the region. She is a recognised expert on development finance innovation, has mentored hundreds of seed and venture capital funds, invested in over 80 of them and also designed programmes to boost entrepreneurial ecosystems in most countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Capria and its fund managers are bound by the common objective of creating profit and impact in emerging markets to accelerate the flow of global and local capital towards building sustainable early growth businesses. Through its network of 20 partner fund managers, Capria has access to companies in 37 countries in the emerging markets of Africa, Middle East, South and Southeast Asia and Latin America.
In addition, Small Foundation and Capria’s collaboration will focus on developing pragmatic ways to measure the impact of our local partners’ investments in Africa.
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