Our investees are financial service providers, funds and SMEs serving our end-clients in emerging markets. Here you can learn about the types of investees we work with, and get to know a few of them around the world — just to give you a better idea of the brilliant, purpose-led organisations we invest in.
Georgia
Vietnam
Guatemala
Palestinian Territories
Ghana
Malawi
Ecuador
India
Zambia
Ecuador
Moldova
India
Côte d’Ivoire
Egypt
JSC MFO Crystal (‘Crystal’) is the leading financial inclusion organization and the largest non-banking financial institution in Georgia. The MFI started its activity in 1995 as an NGO founded by internally displaced persons from Abkhazia (occupied by Russia) and has ultimately transformed into JSC Crystal in 2007. Over this period, JSC MFO Crystal has grown from a small business project within a not-for-profit organization founded by a group of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to the largest microfinance institution in Georgia. Staying firm to its mission to provide sustainable financial services to low and middle income rural clients and the micro and small business Segment, Crystal acts as a platform for economic development for micro and small entrepreneurs as well as farmers providing them with innovative financial products and value-added services.
Currently, Crystal manages the loan portfolio of GEL 400 million, employing more than 1,000 members of staff, operating through 50 branches and serving more than 118,000 unique customers across Georgia, out of which 59% are female borrowers while 54% of overall beneficiaries are located in rural regions of Georgia.
Crystal has diversified loan product range, well adapted to the client’s needs. In addition to business and agricultural loans, institution offers home improvement, micro mortgage, pawnshop and consumer loans. With a long track record of a successful housing lending institution has Housing Microfinance loan portfolio of more than GEL 60M serving more than 9,300 outstanding borrowers.
Thanks to its early detection and containment strategy, Vietnam is considered to be a successful case in responding to COVID-19 worldwide. Trung Son Care, a leading pharmacy modern retail chain and portfolio company of Asia Business Builders (ABB) I, is the first point of contact for healthcare during COVID-19 for many people in the region with a presence of over 50 stores. Even though the stores remained open during the soft lockdown, allowing customers to come for advice and support, the online channel traffic doubled in the first five months of 2020, servicing customers with at-home delivery, which made Trung Son Care a the leader in online pharmaceutical services. The boost in online business is considered a positive outcome of responding to the crisis and is expected to benefit the company in the long term as customer behavior becomes increasingly accustomed to this new reality.
In addition, Trung Son Care made sure to implement policies swiftly to avoid the spread of COVID-19 when the virus emerged. Comprehensive temperature checks were put in place for its 220 employees and staff started carrying face masks. As a result, the company has not reported a single case of COVID-19 among its exposed staff or visiting customers.
DGGF invested in ABB I in 2018.
Guatemala’s economic activity is 99% dependent on the operations of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs). Despite their economic importance, Guatemalan MSMEs are estimated to face a USD 14 billion financing gap.
The need becomes more evident for women-owned businesses and businesses in rural areas, impeding the country’s long-term inclusive growth. In line with its mission to address these challenges and improve the local MSME environment, in 2017 the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) partnered up with Fundación Génesis Empresarial, a Guatemalan Financial Institution (FI). Génesis is now considered to be a market leader in microlending and has grown to be one of the largest FIs in the region.
Génesis stands out from its peers with its tailor-made approach toward loans for underserved communities in Guatemalan society. 70% of their client base consists of female entrepreneurs, and loans are provided to businesses in rural areas. To upscale their businesses, the institution provides guidance to microfinance clients to enter the SME segment, placing them on a graduation path to access larger loans.
With support from DGGF, Génesis is developing training programs for farmers and piloting the financing of Agri-value chains that directly connect suppliers to buyers. Furthermore, Genesis is an early adapter of Fintech solutions to digitize loans for SME clients, setting an example for like-minded players in the market.
In 2021, DGGF renewed a USD $5 million loan to the institution, believing it will keep contributing to inclusive job growth and systemic change.
The Palestinian entrepreneurial ecosystem is nascent but advancing, with a lot of young and promising entrepreneurs starting and growing their businesses despite the challenging environment.
The development of smaller SMEs is constrained by political instability, lack of access to markets, unfavorable regulations, and lack of finance from the banking sector. With their loans, FATEN is providing finance solutions for small-scale enterprises and micro-entrepreneurs, mainly women, as they often do not have access to financing from banks in the Palestinian Territories. FATEN is the largest Micro Finance Institution operating in Palestinian Territories, with 37 branches covering more than 500 sites, including sites in refugee camps, rural areas, and marginalized communities. As recently as May 2021, one of FATEN’s branches in Gaza was bombed during the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
Part of FATENs strategy is to become a data-driven organization with relevant digital financial products to support the integration of micro, small, and medium businesses into the broader digital economy. As part of Technical Assistance provided by DGGF’s SC&BD, the consultancy firm PHB Development has been working in close collaboration with FATEN to develop a digital strategy.
Akwaaba Feeds is a Ghanaian feed manufacturing company set up in 2018 by two Ghanaian entrepreneurs. With rising temperatures and costs and periodic shortages of essential raw materials, the company found a replacement in maggot meal (insect protein from black soldier flies) to increase protein levels required in the poultry feed formulation.
After piloting and testing the concept, the company raised funding to scale up maggot meal production. By early 2022, the company had doubled its revenue and distributors and expanded its poultry farm by over 500%. Akwaaba Feeds aims to use circularity practices and combines all the waste from its feed production with other food waste to farm the maggots. Maggot production waste is then turned into compost and used for crop farming.
Akwaaba is supported by Wangara Green Ventures, a DGGF Seed Capital client focusing on greening SMEs in Ghana.
Yellow Solar is a company predominantly distributing and financing Solar Home Systems to populations living off-the-grid. The company operates in Malawi since 2018 and in Uganda since 2019 and has recently added smartphones to its offering of essential services to underserved households and micro-enterprises. In 2022 the company expanded to Rwanda and Zambia. Yellow has sold 240k+ units to date.
COAC Azuayo founded in 1996 is the second-largest cooperative in Ecuador. A business model based on close contact with its clients and dedicated credit products has enabled them to grow consistently over the years, having excellent brand recognition countrywide. Due to the increasing demand, the Coop extended its network through strategic partnerships with grocery stores to perform basic transactions like withdrawals linked to deposits. On the other hand, the support to its clients through housing loans has been an positive feature of the MFI, not only for the MFI’s interests to improve its client recognition, but also because it shows the commitment and mission of the Coop to improve the quality of life of its clients. In general, the Housing Microfinance portfolio contributes to over 30% of the cooperative’s overall portfolio, and remains as a key product to be featured and grown. The cooperative has received financing under the MicroBuild Fund and remains as an important client to be supported going forward.
Samunnati stands for inclusive growth & collective prosperity for all. Launched in November 2014, Samunnati is a specialized agri-value chain finance company with head office in Chennai, India. Samunnati aims to enhance the efficiency of agri value chains by providing Financial Intermediation, Market Linkages, Advisory and Trade Services. Samunnati works with a belief that for a value chain to work well, all the chain actors need to have access to markets, customized advisory services and appropriate financial services – thereby making the value chains operate at a higher equilibrium. Through value chain finance model, Samunnati is providing a ordable and customized financial product o erings such as retail loans to small & marginal farmers, working capital loans to Farmers Producers Organizations (FPO) and receivable finance to Agri SMEs respectively. Two principle drivers of Samunnati are working with FPOs, representing the small and marginal farmers at the supply side and Agri Enterprises at the demand side. This unique integrated approach
Agora Microfinance Zambia Limited (AMZ) was established in 2010 to provide high quality financial services to the financially excluded population of Zambia. AMZ is focussed on rural lending with an average loan size less than 150 USD. Based out of Lusaka, most branches are based in rural areas and across 6 branches, AMZ serves over 16k clients of whom >62% of clients are women and >85% live in rural areas. The products offered are primarily village banking, small group loans, MSME and SME loans.Triple Jump partnered with AMZ in 2018 because of the strong social performance to otherwise financially excluded groups. AMZ is often the only MFI in rural areas and has a clear focus on women.
“In words of FACES´ Executive President, “internal and external social responsibility is a fundamental pillar for the personal and collective development and growth of FACES´ staff; this in turn, empowers FACES´ customers which comprises male and female microentrepreneurs in conditions of fewer opportunities for continuous growth.”
FACES is a non-regulated financial institution operating since 1991 in in the South and Centre of Ecuador and has been TJ investee since 2010. FACES has a remarkable link with the TJ fund’s targets as almost 70% of GLP has been allocated in clients living in rural areas and working in productive/agricultural activities, and has a strong social orientation as it offers special loans to families with handicapped members at lower interest rates.
Aligned with TJ´s mission of investing capital to empower people and improve lives, FACES aims to contribute to fight against poverty and unemployment in urban and rural areas through
Microinvest is a leading non-banking provider of microfinance services in Moldova, accounting for more than 1/3 of the country’s microfinance loan portfolio. The institution was established in 2003 as a spin-off of the Moldova Microfinance Alliance, an NGO founded in 1997. Geographically, Microinvest covers all areas of Moldova through 14 branches, 10 of which are located in the rural areas of the country. The institution serves over 36000 customers and has a total loan portfolio of more than EUR 108 million, of which 30% is allocated to businesses in the agriculture sector. Microinvest is firmly committed to responsible lending practices and places high emphasis on women and rural borrowers who make up around 50% and 65% of the total number of customers, respectively. As a core segment, the company serves micro and small businesses, farmers and private individuals and provides them with financing for working capital, investments, home improvement and educational needs. Microinvest’s adherence to responsible lending, highly qualified sta with excellent market knowledge, ambition and capacity to achieve significant
Low-cost solution to breast cancer screening in India. Current breast cancer screening technologies in the market are expensive, uncomfortable, expose many patients to unnecessary radiation and rely heavily on trained technicians for accurate results. NIRAMAI (Non-Invasive Risk Assessment with Machine Learning) offers a solution to this dilemma. Its patented technology, Thermalytix©, is contact-free, enables early detection and is low-cost, painless and radiation-free. Using cutting-edge, machine learning-led analytics reduces the need for highly trained technicians, which lowers the cost of the service. This gives lower-income women greater access to breast cancer screening. The company has locations across urban and rural India and screens thousands of women. The more women are screened for breast cancer, the more the algorithm improves, increasing the accuracy of the results. Besides the screening facilities at its own locations, NIRAMAI’s technology is now available in dozens of diagnostic centers and hospitals across multiple Indian states.
Baobab+ is a social business committed to providing access to solar energy and digital transformation, which is a first step to Digital Revolution in Africa and rural areas. They commercialize innovative products with financing solutions that meet the needs of local populations.
Since its launch, over 200,000 homes have been equipped with solar power. A “pay as you go” (PAYG) program allows clients to receive a solar panel upfront and make payments on their own time schedule. Baobab+ provides rural schools with solar lamps so that schoolchildren can pursue their studies at home after nightfall. Baobab+ equips households with tablets for education, family, and business use. The tablets can be used to increase literacy provide healthcare tips, or serve as digital cash registers to help entrepreneurs manage their businesses. Within Africa, Baobab+ partners with local agencies to give clients free access to social impact content including e-education, e-healthcare, and e-farming.
Furthermore, Baobab+ is lobbying local governments to consider PAYG access to solar energy as an essential service to be considered. Baobab has reached over 1.2 million beneficiaries since its inception.
GoodsMart in Egypt is an innovative, e-commerce company. It received investment from Sawari Ventures. A box is installed next to the front door. People who deliver groceries can simply leave
them in this box. The system minimises contact between people. In 2018, the Dutch Good Growth Fund (DGGF) launched DGGF4Youth, an initiative to boost opportunities for young entrepreneurs and youth employment across Africa, by targeting funds that improve the local financial infrastructure and stimulate local entrepreneurship. These funds oer capital, coaching, networking and other forms of support. Among these funds is the Sawari Ventures North Africa Fund (Sawari Ventures) a 35 million USD, first-time fund. It supports innovative local SMEs from Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco by providing early-stage and growth capital. It believes there are many viable investment opportunities in North Africa, which have been waiting for the right funding and business partners. These opportunities are mainly in the tech space. Sawari sees a clear need for these types of investments. North Africa has
