ImpactAlpha, January 28 – There’s a $2.5 trillion annual funding gap for the Sustainable Development Goals and a $5 trillion funding gap for small businesses in emerging and frontier markets. Luxembourg-based Bamboo Capital is in fundraising mode for a multi-fund impact initiative to get more money flowing to both.
A series of six global funds will make early stage investments in businesses addressing the Sustainable Development Goals through agriculture, finance, energy, education and healthcare. Bamboo’s Jean-Philippe de Schrevel said the goal of the initiative is to quell the missing middle funding gap that’s “suffocating early stage enterprises, which have the potential to transform some of the world’s poorest and most underdeveloped regions.”
The funds include: ABC Fund, focusing on smallholder farmers and agribusinesses; BUILD, which will make fixed-income investments in frontier markets; CARE SheTrades Fund for women-focused investments in Asia; BLOC SmartAfrica and BLOC Latin America, which are regionally-focused impact tech funds; and HEAL, a venture fund investing for emerging markets healthtech startups.
Bamboo will manage each fund.
The European Union; the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States; the governments of Luxembourg, Togo and Tunisia; CARE; and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa have committed an undisclosed amount of first-loss capital to encourage other investors to back the initiative.
