Impact Funds Management
Through our portfolios and projects, we have created positive impact in various sectors.
Grassroots Business Partners Portfolio (closed)
Prior to our formation in 2008, we operated as the International Finance Corporation’s (IFC) Grassroots Business Initiative. Grassroots Business Partners Portfolio (GBP) spun out of IFC to begin making financial investments in for-profit companies, using 100% grant funding and delivering business advisory services.
FUND-LEVEL RESULTS
$7.7M
Invested
58%
Portfolio in Africa
$5.8M
in Technical Assistance
47%
Portfolio in agribusiness
17.1M
Beneficiaries impacted
15
Successful exits
35+
High-Impact Companies
COMPANY HIGHLIGHTS
Pwani feeds
Pwani feeds is a Kenyan female-founded, family-operated company which markets animal feeds and purchases eggs at a single transaction point from over thousands of farmers, saving farmers time and money on transportation and other marketing costs.
Our work
GBP’s investment enabled the company to acquire high-quality raw materials and upgrade its fleets of trucks. Advisory services streamlined the company’s financial management practices, optimized operational efficiencies, and diversified business strategy leading to the entrance of a mainstream financier and early exit for GBF.
Impact
$3m incremental income to farmers.
Gone Rural
Gone rural was formed in 1992 to create employment for women in rural communities across Swaziland. Gone Rural embraces the spirit of social and environmental awareness, working with rural women to create fairtrade products.
Our work
GBP’s advisory services worked closely for an extended period of time with Gone Rural’s management to develop financial forecasting tools, which allowed them to match their capital structure to their operational and financial needs.
Impact
The female artisans directly earn 30-60% of the sale price of any artisanal goods, which is quite high by international norms. The artisans’ relationship with Gone Rural also provides access to training and HIV-awareness workshops.
GB Investors Fund (Exit in Process)
Grassroots Business Investors Fund I L.P (GBI-I) was set up in 2011 as GBF’s first for-profit financing vehicle. The aim was to have the blended structure to enable GBF’s mandate: reaching impactful but challenging SMEs with mezzanine-type financing managed by GBF, which would in turn also support investees with technical assistance for early-year funds.
GBF raised $41M in three classes of investment in GBI-I and $8M in grant funding for technical assistance.
FUND-LEVEL RESULTS
$41M
Invested Capital
33
$32.9M
Realized Proceeds
Companies Invested Globally (51% Latin America, 26% Asia & 23% Africa)
3.4M
Farmers, artisans and consumers supported
3 X
Third-Party Capital Mobilization
COMPANY HIGHLIGHTS
Villa Andina
Villa Andina is a Peruvian company that buys quinoa and other Andean grains from smallholder farmers’ associations, processes the products in its Lima plant and sells them in international markets. In 2011, GBF partnered with Villa Andina to help the company scale and strengthen operations through the acquisition of land, expansion of a new plant, and increase of working capital.
Our work
GBF focused its support on developing Villa Andina’s financial management, strengthening its corporate governance, improving operations, and implementing strategic planning.
Impact
By sourcing agricultural products from small-scale farmers, Villa Andina connects families to more lucrative markets and trains producers to grow higher value goods.
Wamu
Wamu is a family-owned business in Nairobi that exports French beans, sugar snaps and snow peas, as well as niche products such as passion fruits and chilies, to the European market. Wamu has strong outgrower management and works with smallholder farmers, as well as employing packhouse workers who are primarily women.
Our work
GBF’s investment supports working capital and capex needs in the company. GBF’s advisory services improved financial management and packhouse operations.
Impact
Wamu sources from hundreds of smallholder farmers and employs direct workers, most of whom are women. The company has provided up to $300,000 of income annually to its farmers. The company also certified its farmers under Good Agricultural Practice (Global GAP), which enables the farmers to export high-value products to Europe.
Jaipur Rugs
Jaipur Rugs designs, markets and supervises the production of artisanal rugs. The company maintains impactful relationships with its artisans, more than half of whom are lower-income rural women. It also provides inputs and equipment, and in some cases even provides its weavers with loans to buy looms.
Our work
GBF worked with Jaipur Rugs to help the company become more efficient, manage inventory, enter new markets, and be prepared for new capital investment.
Impact
Jaipur Rugs empowers low-income artisans to become entrepreneurs and employs thousands of poor people. The company also has a foundation that provides training, education and health benefits to artisans and their families.
COVID-19 Recovery & Resilience Program (closed)
The Mastercard Foundation’s COVID-19 Recovery and Resilience Program (CRRP) was designed to assist institutions and communities in Africa to respond to the short-term, negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, while strengthening their resilience in the long run. GBF was the fund manager of the CRRP in Kenya.
Technical assistance was a key part of the program. CRRP featured both online and offline assessment and training methods to improve MSME’s resilience during and beyond the pandemic. Sectors that benefited were wholesale and retail trade, clothing and fashion services, and agriculture and livestock.
FUND-LEVEL RESULTS
$6M
Loan capital
21,541
Microenterprises supported
43,018
Jobs sustained
81.2%
To women-owned enterprises
43.4%
To youth-owned enterprises
Andes Plus Fund
GBF’s Latin America team spun off into a new fully-fledged unit operating as Andes Impact Partners (AIP) with its headquarters in Lima, Peru. AIP launched Andes Plus Fund I in November 2020 with an initial focus on Peru and Colombia, and the possibility of expanding to other markets in the region.
GBF will remain as Andes Impact Partner of choice for grant-funded technical assistance and business advisory services, leveraging its decade-long experience managing and providing technical assistance programs to the types of businesses APF will be supporting.
The Eastern and Southern African Trade & Development Bank SME Program (active)
As part of its mandate to strengthen the entrepreneurial fabric of the region, the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB) SME program signed a 4-year facility to finance women or youth-led SMEs operating in the agricultural sector.
The facility is blended with technical assistance specifically focused on improving the SMEs' financial management systems.
Blooming Roots Fund (active)
Fund for the Reactivation and Reconstruction of Providencia and Santa Catalina (FRP)
Blooming Roots: Fund for the Reactivation and Reconstruction of Providencia and Santa Catalina (FRP) launched in March 2022. This first-of-its-kind fund provides support for the reconstruction of businesses in Colombia’s Providencia and Santa Catalina Islands affected by Hurricane Iota, a devastating Category 4 tropical cyclone, which tore through the islands in November 2020.
The Fund is sponsored by Banco de Comercio Exterior de Colombia (Bancoldex) and the United Nations Development Programme, as anchor investors, and managed by AMPLO Inversión de Impacto (AMPLO) with GBF.