Oxfam Novib and Goodwell Investments have teamed up to create a new fund, Pepea, worth EUR 20 million. Pepea aims to address the “missing middle” in early-stage growth companies in East Africa by investing in small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that are struggling to secure finance from traditional sources.
The fund will target businesses with high impact potential in the sustainable agriculture, energy, clean mobility and logistics, and waste management sectors. Pepea will invest in Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia and strive to make a positive impact on the local communities while contributing to a greener, fairer, and more inclusive society.
The fund’s name comes from Swahili, and it means to “take off” and “flourish.” The two organizations will leverage their strengths and work together to create a unique partnership in the financing space. Oxfam Novib has a history of investing in impact-driven SMEs and has been improving SME’s access to finance through their Impact SME Development (iSME) Programme since 2015. Goodwell Investments will manage Pepea’s day-to-day operations and support the success of the fund and development of the portfolio with their experienced local investment managers.
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Pepea has concrete impact targets, including expanding the involvement of female stakeholders across the value chain, creating new jobs, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and providing fairer wages. The fund is taking unprecedented steps to gather impact feedback from the target audience with a “sounding board” made up of representatives from SMEs and their end users to ensure that the fund’s managers take the voice of the community into account.
Pepea is structured to benefit female stakeholders and expand both organizations’ approach to gender-lens investing. The investment instruments were specifically designed to better encompass the needs of female entrepreneurs and stakeholders using innovative venture debt structures with a focus on mezzanine finance.
Pepea launched on 30 March in Nairobi, and both organizations are excited to uplift the next generation of entrepreneurs with funding from Pepea.
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According to Tamara Campero, Investment manager at Oxfam Novib, “Oxfam Novib played a sterling role in developing the microfinance sector as a means to provide access to financial services where they were most needed. As that sector has matured beyond the realm of NGOs, we are ready to change direction toward a less-served segment of the market. We acknowledge the challenges of SMEs in the region (especially those that are women-owned) to access fine-tuned patient capital and we now want to play a role to address with that needs.”
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Els Boerhof, Managing Partner at Goodwell Investments commented, “Goodwell is always looking for innovative ways to better serve the needs of SMEs, and we’re extremely pleased to have the opportunity to do so with one of the most professional, critical NGOs in the impact sector. There are so many synergies between our organisations, and I’m convinced that together, we can set higher standards in the impact investing space.”
Pepea fund Africa Pepea fund Africa
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard