Smart Capital for Small Businesses
This project was a research and design piece of work, funded by Shell Foundation, with the purpose of uncovering the smartest use of subsidies in alternative debt funds and to test whether an impact kicker for jobs would be an appropriate way to distribute that funding. The objectives of the initiative were to:
- Understand success factors of debt funds using Enterprise Supplier Development Funds as research cohort;
- Assess the use of subsidies required to maintain fund profitability considering small ticket sizes, fund sizes and early stage financing;
- Assess use of job linked incentives to distribute funding using Jobs Fund as test case;
- Design fund based on findings to support early stage businesses in Kenya;
- Create an enabling environment to increase the deployment of impact investment including impact measurement and management standards and regulatory enablers.