Introducing the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund - Part one

Part 1

Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund (MFAGF) – two-part series with Investisseurs et Partenaires (I&P) and Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA) 

Hugues Vincent-Genod opens up the conversation introducing Investisseurs et Partenaires, an impact fund manager active in 10 markets, specialised and dedicated to Africa with AUM worth $400m 01:37. He then goes on to mention the landmark $200m initiative by Mastercard Foundation (Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund- MFAGF) to support African investment vehicles alongside a consortium of partners, (Mennonite Economic Development Associates (MEDA), Entrepreneurial Solutions Partners (ESP), Genesis Analytics, the Criterion Institute, and Africa Communications Media Group) 04:04.

The MFAGF fund will be a transformative player for first time, women led and African fund managers supporting different fund structures and instruments 06:04. The fund also seeks to facilitate raising African capital at scale to address some of the barriers including local currency risk 12:00. The main pillars the MFAGF seeks to support is more women-led funds that currently make up most of the pipeline as well as encouraging more patient capital into various investment vehicles 16:32. The Criterion Institute have built a lot of the frameworks we see today and will support investment vehicles to apply and maintain a robust gender-lens in all investment decisions 19:02. The initiative will also go beyond capital and will offer technical and qualitative support such as advisory on implementing HR policies, and good governance practices within the funds and their subsequent portfolio companies 20:41.

You can keep up to date with the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund’s latest developments via the following channels here:

Twitter: @Africagrowthfnd

LinkedIn: @Africagrowthfund

Facebook: @Africagrowthfund

About the fund

The Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund (MFAGF), is a bold initiative—a Fund of Funds—that works through African Investment Vehicles to support early-stage, growth-oriented SMEs on the continent, launched today with a committed $200 million (USD). The goal of the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund is to enable dignified and fulfilling work for young people, particularly young women. The Fund-of-funds is catalytic, helping to crowd in capital for African entrepreneurs by strengthening and de-risking African Investment Vehicles that are committed to advancing gender equity in entrepreneurship.

In addition to providing capital for fund managers, the MFAGF will offer a business development facility for their investment vehicles’ portfolio companies. The Fund-of-Funds initiative will use gender-lens investing (GLI) principles to help advance the Mastercard Foundation’s Young Africa Works strategy, which aims to enable 30 million young people in Africa, particularly young women, to access dignified and fulfilling work by 2030. So far, the Fund-of-Funds has recruited two Investment Vehicles supporting entrepreneurial growth- one in East Africa and one in West Africa. Investisseurs et Partenaires (I&P) is the fund advisor for the MFAGF.