Nabilah Safira
TechInAfrica – The Ireland-based philanthropic Small Foundation has recently invested in leading global investment firm Capria Ventures to elevate the rural-focused micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) opportunities in sub-Saharan Africa.
The partnership aims to provide MSMEs with expansive access to knowledge, skilled human resources, finance, technology, and markets, thus advancing the rural economy and technology development while scaling up the countries’ innovation speed.
The Small Foundation CEO Conor Brosnan commented on the investment, “Supporting highly leveraged opportunities to drive sustained impact in SSA 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 SSA. This investment will help enterprises in SSA have access to funding, enabling them to create jobs and opportunities across the continent.”
Meanwhile, Capria Ventures have been navigating their investment route in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Zimbabwe with the help of 8 fund managers based in Africa. They mainly deal with the healthcare, logistics, informal transport networks, finance, and commerce issues that surround the investment process.
With huge networking that comprises 20 partner fund managers and access to companies in the emerging markets in 37 countries of Africa, the Middle East, and South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America, the firm and its fund managers are running to fulfill the business sustainability by accelerating the global and local capital flow.
Recently, Susana Garcia Robles joined the firm as a Senior Partner. As an expert in the development finance innovation, known to have mentored and invested in seed and venture capital funds, as well as designing programs that catalyze the entrepreneurial ecosystems in Latin America and the Caribbean countries, her involvement hopes to secure the expertise in the Africa region.
“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 SSA. 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 SSA,” says Jack Knellinger, a Partner at Capria Ventures.
“The funds will be utilized to scale up operations in Africa as well as to increase the global footprint of our firm.”
