The Brief

The Brief: Building AI for Africa with open-source models and local languages

ImpactAlpha · May 12, 2026

Greetings Agents of Impact!

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In today’s Brief:

AI for Africa: Open-source models and local languages
Greener jet fuel in Egypt
Expanding Dollaride in New York
Sorenson Impact Advisory scoops up Align Impact’s clients and team

Featured: Shaping the Algorithm

From apps to infrastructure, African startups are building AI for Africa. African startups are joining the AI race, on their own terms. From Nairobi to Lagos to Johannesburg, local entrepreneurs are building on open source models to create AI applications for Africans and to provide the continent with a measure of data sovereignty and control. The global AI market is dominated by a handful of US and Chinese tech companies. Africa, with a history of leapfrogging through stages of technology, is becoming a testbed for a bottom-up, distributed, local alternative that could be a model not only for the Global South, but for the globe. “We’ll have a global wave of private models and more open-source models,” says Toffene Kama of Mercy Corps Ventures, which tracks and invests in cutting-edge tech trends in emerging and frontier markets. “But there is a whole wave also coming from the ground, with small and micro models that could do the work in a much more efficient way, but for a very narrow problem.”

Design constraints. Policymakers and investors are discussing Africa’s massive opportunity – and sudden risks – at this week’s Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi. Local sovereignty means lightweight AI platforms and applications that can work in areas where reliable energy, Internet connectivity and compute power are lacking, and language models that include hundreds of African languages neglected by major Western models. “For us to assume that we can achieve growth, prosperity and development by sitting on the sidelines while the world and technology moves rapidly would be a mistake, and we’d be missing quite a significant opportunity,” says Mike Mompi of Nairobi-based Enza Capital. Enza’s third fund, which is about halfway to its $60 million target, is focused entirely on AI startups.
AI for good. Mercy Corps Ventures is looking for startups that combine AI and satellite imagery to predict drought and other climate shocks – information that is key in providing parametric insurance. Its portfolio includes US-based Floodbase, which teamed up with the African Union’s insurance unit African Risk Capacity in 2023 to develop parametric insurance products. From Senegal, Tolbi uses AI to analyze and provide data on weather patterns, irrigation requirements, soil health and crop needs across francophone Africa. In Kenya, the non-profit Jacaranda Health rolled out an AI feature that addresses, in Swahili, mothers’ questions throughout and after their pregnancies.

Five-layer cake. Africa’s first wave of AI startups focused on applications of the technology to persistent challenges. The second is focused on AI infrastructure itself, from data centers to large language models and the data used to train them (see, “Investing across the tech stack to orchestrate ‘good AI’”). Nvidia’s Jensen Huang describes a five-layer cake that includes energy, chips, physical infrastructure, AI models and applications. Building it in an inclusive way is the key. The Global Center on AI Governance released a report on the AI landscape in Africa last year. The Huniki Federation, a cooperative venture of African language tech startups, is helping communities control data, goals and deployment. “I don’t want to build one model for everything,” said Timnit Gebru of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. “I want to build many models for many different kinds of people in the world, because there’s no one way of being human.”
Keep reading, “From apps to infrastructure, African startups are building AI for Africa,” by Lucy Ngige.

Dealflow: Green Transition

Ninety One arranges $143 million for sustainable jet fuel production in Egypt. Surging jet fuel prices, caused by the continued blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, sealed the fate of one embattled airline. Other airlines worldwide are slashing flight schedules in anticipation of a major jet fuel shortage. UK and South Africa-based fund manager Ninety One arranged a $142.9 million debt package for Doha-based Green Sky Capital, which is building a facility to manufacture sustainable jet fuel alternatives in Egypt. Two of Ninety One’s funds backed the project: the Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund, which offered a $40 million senior secured loan, and the Emerging Markets Transition Debt Fund. Qatar National Bank’s Egyptian subsidiary and The Arab Energy Fund also participated. Green Sky’s plant in Egypt will have the capacity to produce more than 220,000 tons of sustainable jet fuel and other biofuels, including bio-propane, per year.

Project security. Airlines have been some of the biggest investors in sustainable jetfuels, but capital for such fuel alternatives has otherwise been sluggish and costs of production remain high. The sector may have become more competitive with traditional fuel prices, which have roughly doubled since the Iran war began. Green Sky has risk protection on its planned $212.4 million plant: It signed on Shell, the UK-based oil giant, as its primary feedstock provider and fuel off-taker. Shell will pay Green Sky a fee if it doesn’t purchase the fuel at an agreed-upon price.
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Chestnut Run Capital bets on Dollaride to bring electric vehicles to New York’s transit deserts. Chestnut Run Capital Partners, a Boston-based private credit firm, is providing a senior-secured loan to Dollaride for its clean transit access program, which aims to electrify New York City’s informal dollar-van network and other public transportation operating in the city’s transit deserts (see, “From dollar-van commuter to urban-mobility entrepreneur”). In addition to dollar vans, the expansion will focus on senior transport, paratransit and non-emergency medical transportation. “Their business model is turnkey for fleet operators, making it very well positioned to scale,” Chestnut Run’s Yeng Felipe Butler told ImpactAlpha. Butler declined to disclose the size of the loan. Dollaride’s clean transit program is also backed by Elemental Excelerator and the New York State Research and Development Authority.

Risk management. Chestnut Run found Dollaride through Zeti, a UK-based fintech that connects lenders with fleet operators of mobility and energy assets. As part of the transaction, Zeti will provide real-time risk monitoring support to Chestnut Run throughout the duration of the loan. “The Dollaride-Chestnut Run transaction is a strong example of what becomes possible when innovative financing meets real-time asset intelligence,” said Zeti’s Jon Stafford.
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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

RDF’s Pivot Fund secured a $7 million program-related investment and a $1 million grant from The California Endowment to finance community-based housing, education and healthcare organizations. (RDF)

Trillium Renewable Chemicals scored $13 million in Series B funding to manufacture bio-based acrylonitrile, an alternative to a fossil fuel-based ingredient used in making carbon fiber, plastic, textiles and other materials. (Trillium)

Utah-based Enzo Health raised $20 million in Series A financing from N47, Gradient, Tandem Ventures and Rigby Watts to meet surging demand for in-home care for aging adults in the US. (Enzo Health)

Signals: Advisors’ Corner

Sorenson Impact Advisory scoops up talent and clients from Align Impact. Among impact financial advisors, assets go and assets come. Utah-based investor Jim Sorenson has been on both sides of the ebbs and flows. Sorenson Impact Advisory is absorbing a half-dozen advisors and other professionals, along with many of their clients, from Align Impact, the early impact advisory that shuttered its operations at the end of April, as ImpactAlpha first reported. The reshuffle of high net-worth clients and other asset owners is expected to roughly double the Sorenson advisory’s assets under management from about $255 million at the end of last year (disclosure: Sorenson Impact Foundation is an investor in ImpactAlpha). “We wanted to see the clients taken care of, and we really wanted to set up a platform for growth,” Sorenson told ImpactAlpha on the sidelines of this month’s Mission Investors Exchange conference. “And we want to show that this can be done and survive and thrive in the marketplace, and create a recognition of the need for pure impact advisory services.”

Moving assets. About a decade ago, unhappy with the impact investing vehicles on offer through his wealth manager, Sorenson transferred management of his considerable assets to anchor Sepio Capital, a new financial advisory firm formed by veterans of Merrill Lynch’s wealth management arm. Within three years, the new firm had helped Sorenson Impact Foundation rotate 100% of its assets to align its endowment with positive impact and the Sustainable Development Goals. That achievement, in turn, encouraged the umbrella Sorenson Impact Group to establish its own advisory firm to manage not only the foundation’s assets, but outside capital as well. Lauren Sercu left Sepio and co-founded Sorenson Impact Advisory in 2023. “Over the long term, our belief is that there’s a premium around prioritizing non-financial factors that are material, that are sustainability oriented,” Sercu said.
Client acquisition. Denver-based Align Impact had raised $1.5 million in financing at the end of 2024, but was nearly out of money by the middle of last year and was unable to raise additional capital. CEO Matthew Weatherley-White said the firm had been unable to find a buyer. About 50 clients scrambled to find new advisors. Some of them will follow Align’s team to Sorenson Impact Advisory. “Jim is 100% – he’s committed,” Weatherley-White said of Sorenson. “This is the firm I belong at.” Also joining Sorenson Impact Advisory is Jack Meyercord, who founded the advisory Conscious Endeavors, which was acquired by Align Impact last year. Align partners Kristin Viola and Courtney Joyner-Gage will also move to Sorenson, along with director of operations Annemarie Happee, and investment principal Alex Cote.
Keep reading, “Sorenson Impact Advisory scoops up talent and clients from Align Impact,” by David Bank. Explore Getting Started columns and Deep Dives for financial advisors at ImpactAlpha’s Advisors’ Corner, produced in partnership with CapShift.

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Elizabeth McGeveran will step down as McKnight Foundation’s vice president of investments next month after 12 years with the Minneapolis-based foundation… Julia Hines, previously with Education Resource Strategies, joins Social Finance as executive assistant to the president and COO… The ImPact taps Jasmine Rashid, former impact director at Candide Group, as community lead for the US and Canada.

The Business Development Bank of Canada appoints Nadine Saddi as director of inclusive entrepreneurship… Issie Corvi is promoted to director of programs and operations at Purpose Trust Ownership Network… Blume Equity is hiring a visiting analyst in Amsterdam… Impact Fund Denmark has an opening for an investment manager in Copenhagen… Partners Group is on the hunt for a global sustainability team lead in Switzerland… BlueOrchard is looking for an associate impact manager in Tbilisi, Georgia.