Uganda:Inua Capital Launches a new Impact-Focused Private Equity Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises

Investisseurs & Partenaires (I&P) announced the launch of its flagship fund, Inua Impact Fund, with over US$8 million of commitments. Inua Impact Fund is the first resident impact investment equity fund in Uganda that is investing, with a gender lens, in high-potential entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with financing needs of $100,000 to $500,000.

Inua Impact Fund is backed by renowned impact investors including IPDEV (a member of the I&P Group) and the EU-funded Agriculture Financing Initiative (EDFI AgriFI). The over-subscription of the Fund demonstrates its investors’ firm belief in the efficacy of Inua’s approach as a pioneering, locally-based investor providing hands-on value creation support to fast-growing and highly-impactful companies in Uganda, and its focus on furthering essential goods and services provision, local employment and sustainable growth.

Inua Impact Fund will invest patient and catalytic risk capital in over 30 SMEs over the next decade to help build Uganda’s market leaders of tomorrow, operating responsibly and sustainably. The Fund focuses on opportunities aligned with its mission to create dignified jobs with decent incomes, to embed gender inclusivity and to sustainably build the private sector engine and investing ecosystem in Uganda. Kim Kamarebe, Managing Director at Inua Capital, explained: “We are honoured to partner with likeminded impact investors who share our vision to catalyse and accelerate high-potential Ugandan enterprises that are providing solutions for Uganda’s most pressing needs. Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Gender-Smart Investing are as core to the mission of Inua Capital as our focus on delivering strong risk-adjusted returns, and we are incredibly grateful to these investors for their commitment to our unique perspective.”

Inua Capital invests with a gender lens, an approach that seeks to correct gender imbalances in the private sector economy and narrow the gap for women in access to capital. The Fund will seek to build a gender-balanced portfolio with at least 30% of its investee companies owned or led by women (in line with Uganda’s ratio of female entrepreneurs), to embed gender-inclusive practices in all its investees and to ensure gender parity in its own management and governance bodies (and those of its investees).