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Supporting Sub-Saharan African SMEs
Project
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Signature date
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Location
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Angola, Kenya, Sudan, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Multi-country Africa
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Financing tool
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Financing amount (Euro)
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11990000
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Financing details
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USD 12m Equity Investment, EUR 490,000 of technical assistance
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Customer
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Maris Limited
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Type of customer
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Investment fund
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Country of headquarters
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Mauritius
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Project number
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IZZ1086/IZZ1110
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Environmental and social ranking
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IF-A
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Climate co-benefits
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Project with climate co-benefits
This information is given at the time of signature, without prejudice to any developments in the operation/project.
By investing in the impact fund Maris Limited, Proparco is supporting local entrepreneurship, particularly in fragile countries.
Client presentation
Maris Limited is an impact investor and an expert in frontier markets in East and Southern Africa. Since 2009, Maris has built a portfolio of 20 SMEs across 11 East and Southern African countries, particularly in fragile countries such as Zimbabwe, South Sudan and Mozambique. Working with local business partners, Maris pursues a majority investment strategy and, to date, has either created or turned around all of its investee companies.
Project description
Proparco has just invested USD 12m in Maris Limited through AFD Group’s FISEA+ facility, which is part of the Choose Africa initiative.
In addition to this investment, FISEA is providing a technical assistance envelope to Agris Africa Limited, the forestry and agriculture subsidiary of Maris. This technical assistance envelope will enable it to help its companies achieve resilient and sustainable growth.
Project impact
This investment will finance 5 additional SMEs (1 is innovative), with a total of 26 SMEs. 5,000 jobs will be created and/or maintained over the next 5 years and USD 8m will be invested in fragile countries. The project will contribute to the achievement of SDG 8 “Decent work and economic growth” and SDG 9 “Industry, innovation and infrastructure”.