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Backing First-Time SME Finance Vehicles in Emerging Markets: 10 Years of Data Reveals Successful Pathways — And the Role of Catalytic Capital
Earlier this year, the Dutch Good Growth Fund, managed by Triple Jump, along with Investisseurs & Partneraires (I&P) published comprehensive research based on data they’ve collected over the past decade, aiming to shed light on what makes SME finance work across emerging markets — and in Africa in particular. In this second article of their series on NextBillion, Julia Kho at Triple Jump and Marianne Vidal-Marin at I&P share key findings from this research, which revealed pathways that could enable first-time SME risk capital providers to move from concept to first investments — and showed how catalytic capital has enabled others to build lasting models.
- Categories
- Investing
- Tags
- impact investing, MSMEs, research
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Shell Foundation and Accion Open Applications for ClimaFii Alliance Second Cohort
The Climate and Finance Innovations (ClimaFii) Alliance continues its mission to bring financing and sustainable energy solutions to microenterprises across sub-Saharan Africa and India.
- Categories
- Social Enterprise
- Region
- Global
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Moniepoint MFB Launches All-in-One Moniebook Platform to Empower MSMEs in Nigeria
The tool enables business owners to manage inventory, track sales, process payments, monitor staff roles, manage customer relationships, and generate real-time reports from one system.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital payments, fintech, microfinance, MSMEs, scale
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ChatGPT Is Huge in India. These Locally Focused Startups Found a Way to Compete
Indian founders are building digital data sets for low-resource languages by involving the community, and count on local relevance to go against big tech platforms.
- Categories
- Technology
- Region
- Asia Pacific
- Tags
- artificial intelligence, data, MSMEs, startups
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Zazu Raises $1 Million Pre-Seed Round to Reinvent SME Banking Across Africa
With more than 50 SMEs already in beta and over 1,000 businesses on its waitlist, Zazu aims to serve Africa’s 50 million underserved SMEs.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Sub-Saharan Africa
- Tags
- digital finance, fintech, MSMEs, startups
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Mastercard Unveils SME Card With Built-in Cybersecurity Solutions to Help Small and Medium Businesses Thrive in the Digital Economy
The innovative features, including my cyber risk and identity theft protection, help protect SMEs from growing cyber threats while supporting their digital transformation.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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BHub Raises $10 Million to Bring AI to Brazil’s Accounting Market
BHub, a Brazilian financial back-office solution for SMEs in Latam, raised a $10M extension round, bringing its total funding to $55M.
- Categories
- Finance, Technology
- Region
- Latin America
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Entrepreneur-Friendly Inclusive Finance: A Survey of Brazilian MSMEs Highlights Key Lessons for Lenders
In Brazil, impact-focused lenders like Estímulo are successfully reaching small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) with inclusive lending approaches. But as Carla Grados-Villamar at 60 Decibels and Lucas Conrado at Estímulo explain, inclusive finance is not just about disbursing loans — it’s about understanding entrepreneurs’ realities and adapting accordingly. They share findings from 60 Decibels' interviews with over 400 Estímulo loan applicants, highlighting lessons lenders can use to improve business outcomes for borrowers, and prepare non-borrowers for future credit opportunities.
- Categories
- Finance
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