The Brief: Local capital for local fund managers and enterprises in Africa 

Greetings Agents of Impact!

In today’s Brief:

• Ugandan pension plan to anchor a fund of local funds 
• Making natural gas from water and sunlight
• Premium prices for smallholder farmers in Vietnam
• Improving job quality at small businesses 

Featured: Pathways to Growth

Pension fund in Uganda readies a $100 million fund of funds to create jobs – and savers. It’s just a tiny fraction of the assets of Uganda’s National Social Security Fund, but it could signal a sea-change in financing for small and growing businesses across Africa. The national provident fund is allocating 1% of its 26 trillion Ugandan shillings ($7 billion) in assets to social impact investments that create jobs, particularly for Uganda’s young people. The simple thesis: those workers will become savers, shoring up the pension fund’s own balance sheet. As part of its social-impact strategy, NSSF is readying a $100 million fund of funds to invest with local capital providers that will in turn underwrite the financing needs of growth-stage businesses, which create the bulk of new jobs in Uganda and other countries. NSSF will anchor the fund of funds with at least $15 million and help secure the rest from other institutional investors in the region. NSSF hopes to launch the fund before next year’s All Africa Pension Summit in March. “Our definition of return for this part of the balance sheet is not only financial,” NSSF’s Kenneth Owera told ImpactAlpha on the sidelines of last week’s planning meeting for the fund of funds in Uganda. “It’s how many jobs are being created, because this is also a form of return.”

• Africa first. The mobilization of local institutional capital for job-creation and economic development has become even more urgent with the dramatic reduction in foreign development assistance in recent years. African pension funds collectively manage close to $2 trillion in assets. Yet they invest a mere 3% of their portfolios in any kind of “alternative” assets, including private equity, private debt and infrastructure, instead favoring listed equities and government bonds. The new fund of funds would join similar initiatives in Ghana, Rwanda, Zambia and elsewhere. A key distinction is that the NSSF effort is spearheaded by an institutional allocator itself, giving the fund of funds a huge head start. “This is being led by a pension fund, which is an LP, and so the dynamics are different, and it’s exciting to see that they’re actually taking the lead,” Ci-Gaba’s Hamdiya Ismaila told ImpactAlpha. The Ghanaian fund of funds recently reached a first close of $30 million, with two-thirds of the capital secured from local pensions. “We did Ci-Gaba as a demonstration, and we want to see this kind of thinking across the continent,” she said.
  
• Hourglass dilemma. Ismaila said the fund of funds model is one of the most practical and scalable ways for institutional capital providers to channel money into private markets on the continent. Africa’s financing ecosystem for small and growing businesses has suffered from an “hourglass dilemma,” with institutional investors stymied in their ability to move large amounts of capital into small deals. “Local capital managers are playing that incredibly important role in the middle of the hourglass. They can take large pools of capital and disperse it,” Drew von Glahn of the Collaborative for Frontier Finance said on ImpactAlpha’s Agents of Impact call last year. The creation of a fund of funds can help NSSF avoid competition for deals with the local fund managers and capital providers that the pension fund hopes to support to strengthen the local financing ecosystem. It can also diversify risks for the fund and allow for other domestic pension funds to join in, multiplying the availability of capital. “If there is this elephant that I need to take down I can bring in 10 other individuals, we can attack it from different sides,” Owera said. “NSSF can have exposure to an area that it ordinarily wouldn’t have, and also the whole ecosystem is able to get what it needs.”
  
• Keep reading, “Pension fund in Uganda readies a $100 million fund of funds to create jobs – and savers,” by Lucy Ngige.
  

Dealflow: Low-Carbon Transition

Rivan raises £25 million to make synthetic natural gas from water and sunlight. With the Strait of Hormuz closed, European countries are confronting their second energy crisis since Russia invaded Ukraine four years ago. UK-based Rivan is among a wave of startups developing alternative fuels that are greener than fossil fuels and reduce the need for imports. Rivan makes synthetic, carbon-neutral natural gas that can be piped through existing infrastructure, displacing traditional natural gas. The company this week raised £25 million ($34 million), led by IQ Capital, with support from existing investor Plural and new backers including Fundomo and three angel investors. The money will help Rivan build one of Europe’s largest synthetic natural gas plants, double its staff and open a production facility in London. “Rivan is proving that it is possible to create cost-competitive synthetic natural gas at scale,” said IQ Capital’s Jonno Evans. The round brings the two-year-old company’s total funding to $46 million.

• Water and sunlight. Rivan uses solar energy to produce green hydrogen from water via electrolysis. It also captures CO2 from the air, and combines the products together in a reactor to form a synthetic natural gas that is carbon neutral. Each cubic meter of the gas can displace nearly two kilograms of standard natural gas, Rivan says. Technologies for turning renewable resources into alternative fuels have been held back by high costs. Rivan says it keeps costs down by designing and manufacturing its plants in the UK. “By vertically integrating the entire process and manufacturing entirely in-house, we can enable domestic production of synthetic fuels at a scale and price that can make a dent in Europe’s energy security plan,” said Rivan’s Harvey Dodd. This month, Rivan teamed up with Wales & West Utilities to deliver the UK’s first synthetic natural gas project connected to gas pipelines in the county of Wiltshire.
  
• Go deeper.

Symbiotics invests $11.8 million to help small farmers in Vietnam boost exports. Agricultural exports for key Vietnamese crops such as coffee, cashew, and pepper surged last year amid growing demand and higher commodity prices. TechCoop wants to help smallholder farmers and cooperatives get a piece of the pie by linking them to international markets. The woman-founded company provides traceability services, trade credit and financing for farm inputs, and aggregates more than 60 crops and seafood products for sale in Japan, China, the US and Europe. As part of a broader capital strategy, including a Series B raise later this year, TechCoop’s Vietnam-based trading arm, Farmnet, secured an $11.8 million loan from Swiss impact investor Symbiotics. “Vietnam and Southeast Asia agribusiness continues to be a safe haven for foreign investment looking for solid returns in tumultuous times,” said TechCoop’s Tuan Nguyen. The deal follows TechCoop’s $70 million Series A last year, one of Southeast Asia’s largest agtech deals. The mix of equity and debt financing was co-led by Singaporean VC firm TNB Aura and Ascend Vietnam Ventures. TechCoop plans to expand outside Vietnam into Cambodia, Laos and Thailand this year. 

• Export oriented. TechCoop helps small farmers get up to speed on sustainable practices and gain certifications and quality stamps to fetch premium prices. The company last month launched a parametric insurance pilot for coffee and rice farmers, and teamed up with Vietnamese logistics and postal service Viettel Post to expand freight, storage and brokerage services for  export-focused supply chains. It also offers a training program to develop digital agritech leaders in Vietnam. TechCoop has served over 250,000 farmers via 2,000 farmer cooperatives. The company says it hit $220 million in revenues in 2025 and is looking to double that in 2026. 

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Dealflow overflow. Investment news crossing our desks:

• Achieve Partners reached a $450 million close of its second workforce fund. The fund backed  by Cambridge Associates, JP Morgan Asset Management, Ingka Investments and others invested in FutureFit AI to help young workers navigate the AI economy. (Achieve Partners)
  
• Moroccan state-backed financial institution Tamwilcom and the International Finance Corp. launched a $300 million risk-sharing facility, to guarantee lending to small and medium-sized businesses. (MENA Startup Digest)
  
• University of Edinburgh spin-out Exergy3 landed £10 million ($13.3 million) in a seed round from Axeleo Capital, Bayern Kapital, Zero Carbon Capital, Singapore-based Kibo Invest and others. The startup converts excess renewable energy into thermal energy for industrial use. (Edinburgh Innovations)
  
• The Africa Finance Corporation invested €43 million ($50.3 million) in the €65 million dual currency Poro Power Green Bond. Proceeds will finance a 66 megawatt solar plant in Côte d’Ivoire. (AFC)
  
• French development financier Proparco invested $17.3 million in the Alterra Africa Accelerator Fund to back growth-stage businesses across East and Southern Africa. (Proparco)

Impact Voices: Quality Jobs

We have the power to make ‘bad jobs’ better. What makes a job good? Fair pay and benefits, a safe and respectful workplace, worker voice in decision making, opportunities for career growth, and a sustainable schedule, according to Gallup. The global analytics firm found last year that only 40% of US workers have a job that meets those criteria. “It is possible to change this situation. It is possible to make ‘bad jobs’ better,” Aspen Institute’s Maureen Conway writes in a guest post. Aspen, through its Shared Success program and with backing from the Gates Foundation, worked with community lenders to improve job quality in small businesses across the country. “For funders concerned about poverty, economic mobility and community well-being, job quality strategies are a practical investment — one that builds on infrastructure that already exists and can leverage relationships to move a focus on job quality as a business success strategy from novel to normal,” says Conway. 

• Win-win. Nearly half of all American workers are employed by small businesses. But funders and job quality advocates have largely written off the sector because of the perceived resource constraints small shops face. “That assumption is wrong,” writes Conway. “The businesses participating in Shared Success made meaningful improvements to job quality that also boosted their business success.” Aspen worked with local partners to embed job quality advising into their existing programs, connecting lenders and other business organizations for additional training and peer support. Conway advises that funders adopt multi-year timelines to give programs time to see results. Better jobs “are good for workers, good for businesses and good for communities. And they are urgently needed,” she writes. “It is time to invest in making them a reality.”

• Keep reading, “We have the power to make ‘bad jobs’ better,” by Maureen Conway.
  

Agents of Impact: Follow the Talent

Erik Sandersen, former head of financial inclusion at the Ukraine fund at Norfund is promoted to CEO… Anne-Marie Slaughter steps down as CEO at New America after a decade. New America’s Paul Butler will serve as interim CEO… Colorado-based Charter School Growth Fund has an opening for director of structured finance… Living Carbon has an opening for project development manager.

Ceres seeks a data center director to join its climate and energy team… Good Food Institute is hiring an investor engagement manager… Blue Orb is recruiting a managing director for renewables… Pan-African VC Launch Africa Ventures was appointed investment advisor to the £50 million ($67.5 million) Botswana Tech Fund to back tech-enabled businesses across southern Africa. 

👉 View (or post) impact investing jobs on ImpactAlpha’s Career Hub.

Thank you for your impact!

– April 23, 2026