Pan-African alternative credit provider Moneda Invest is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the launch of Africa Fund Africa (AFA), a new initiative aimed at mobilizing African capital into Africa’s real economy. The announcement was made at the company’s 10 Over 10th anniversary event, which looks back on 10 years of financing, empowering and scaling small and medium-sized enterprises across Africa.
The Africa Fund Africa Initiative focuses on the long-standing structural challenges facing the African continent. Despite Africa possessing significant private and institutional wealth, large amounts of capital continue to flow abroad, while local productive sectors remain underfunded. This imbalance limits the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, which play a key role in job creation and value chain development.
The country’s institutional capital, which includes pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance assets and public development banks, already exceeds $1.1 trillion, according to African Finance Corporation data. Pension funds alone manage approximately $455 billion in assets, but less than 3% of those assets are allocated to small businesses. Nigeria’s pension assets amount to ₦22,510 billion, with over 62 per cent invested in government securities and only 0.66 per cent allocated to private equity.
The African diaspora continues to contribute significant financial inflows, alongside institutional capital. In 2024, diaspora remittances to Africa will reach approximately $56 billion, making it Africa’s largest source of external non-debt financing. However, the African Development Bank estimates that Africa has the largest small business funding gap in the world at $421 billion. This contrast highlights what experts describe as a failure to mobilize capital rather than a lack of available funds.
Speaking at the commemorative event, Moneda Invest Africa Group CEO Ejike Egbuagu emphasized the urgency of redirecting Africa’s wealth. “Africa does not lack capital; what it lacks is deliberate allocation. Africa Fund Africa is a call to channel Africa’s wealth, which currently flows abroad, into systems that finance small and medium-sized enterprises, create jobs, strengthen value chains and build lasting economic impact,” he said.
Moneda Invest was founded in 2015 at the height of Nigeria’s foreign exchange crisis, with a focus on filling the financing gap for critical SMEs in sectors such as energy, agriculture, minerals and infrastructure. Over the past 10 years, the company has facilitated more than $200 million in structured financing to more than 130 key small and medium-sized businesses in seven African countries. The company has also received over $350 million in financing requests and has recorded zero defaults through its performance-guaranteed unsecured financing model.
Mr. Egbuagu further said, “The real question is not whether there is capital in Africa; it actually exists. The question is whether that capital is being used intentionally to build our real economy. It is the real economy that will have real impact on the continent. The Africa Fund Africa Initiative will ensure that Africa’s wealth circulates where it matters most: in driving African business, jobs, growth and sustainable impact.”
This initiative builds on Moneda Invest’s existing structure and technology. It leverages the Mauritius-licensed Moneda Capital Credit Fund and associated businesses such as Domena Commodities and Afrisand Logistics. We also rely on MUSA, a digital-first financial platform that supports transparent credit origination, automated risk assessment, real-time transaction monitoring, and seamless domestic and cross-border payments. This approach allows us to expand unsecured lending across sectors and markets.
As Moneda Invest enters its 20th year, the company says it remains focused on scaling up critical small and medium-sized enterprises, strengthening their execution capabilities, and working with investors and policymakers to build resilient, long-term African-owned economic systems. Africa Fund Africa is presented as a call to action to remobilize capital for the continent’s real economy in a planned and sustainable manner.
Moneda Invest operates as a pan-African alternative capital provider providing liquidity and execution support to small and medium-sized enterprises within critical natural resource value chains such as energy, minerals, agriculture and infrastructure. Founded to address limited collateral requirements, slow loan approvals, and limited working capital, the company provides interest-free capital, no traditional collateral requirements, and practical technical support to ensure viable businesses can grow and successfully fulfill their contracts.
This report is based on a media release issued by Moneda Invest.
