The Wholesale Impact Investment Fund (WIIF), a naira-denominated car concentrating on $1 billion for Nigerian small companies, has begun coaching the fund managers it might ultimately again.
On October 30, the Kuramo Foundation for Sustainable Development launched the WIIF SME Fund Accelerator in Lagos, onboarding 22 first-time and rising managers chosen from 84 candidates throughout all six of Nigeria’s geopolitical zones.
Established by the Impact Investors Foundation and the National Advisory Board on Impact Investing, the car is managed by Kuramo Capital Management. Alongside its capital commitments, Kuramo is conducting a 12-week accelerator programme for the cohort, masking funding theses, monetary modelling, fundraising, pipeline growth, authorized structuring, and exit methods.
The fund is working towards a $100 million first shut, which it has not but reached, in accordance to Olamide Adeosun, vice chairman at Kuramo Capital, who spoke on behalf of the fund.
Nigeria has about 39.7 million micro, small and medium enterprises, and the International Finance Corporation estimated in 2022 that they face an unmet financing need of $32.2 billion. Adeosun factors to the primary wave of Nigerian personal fairness managers, corporations similar to Verod and CardinalStone, and says a brand new generation of small enterprise fund managers has not adopted. WIIF wants to change that by coaching and funding the next generation of small enterprise funds.
In June 2025, the Federal Ministry of Finance introduced that the federal government would commit $50 million to the vehicle. Adeosun added that the fund is presently courting home pension funds and native growth finance establishments as early institutional backers.
Rather than investing straight in small companies, WIIF operates as a fund of funds, deploying capital into the middleman autos that finance them.
“Capital deployed into managers who are not yet investment-ready does not create durable results,” learn an announcement shared by Kuramo Capital.
Ijeoma Madueke, the sustainable finance lead of the Kuramo Foundation, says the accelerator’s most important take a look at is funding readiness: paperwork in place, a transparent thesis, and a group in sight. For WIIF, Adeosun stated success could be two funds from the cohort that WIIF can again or two or extra that elevate cash from exterior traders. A ten% hit charge could be “fantastic”, he stated.
In this conversation, Adeosun and Madueke clarify how WIIF has approached elevating cash, why the accelerator took in 22 managers, how the programme selected them, what the coaching covers, and what “investment ready” means.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
WIIF is described as a billion-dollar fund denominated in naira. How a lot has been dedicated up to now, and what has the method of elevating it been like?
Olamide Adeosun: We set out to elevate a billion {dollars}. What we’re telling folks, and what we’re concentrating on, is $100 million for the primary sequence. We are treating it as a $100 million fund, as a result of a billion {dollars} is a really giant quantity. That cash is for micro, small and medium enterprises.
We selected a fund-of-funds method as a result of we needed to attain as many companies as attainable. We put money into different funds, and people funds elevate extra money and put money into the companies.
At the second, we’re elevating from catalytic traders, that means traders keen to take early danger, and from pension funds. We are speaking to Nigerian growth finance establishments and to worldwide foundations that work on the continent. We haven’t made a primary shut but.
In these talks, what traders need to see is a observe file. Who are you going to put money into? That is why we use what we name the ABCD method to constructing markets, which the Kuramo Foundation developed.
Think in regards to the first wave of personal fairness managers in Nigeria, corporations similar to Verod and CardinalStone. We try to construct the next generation of small enterprise fund managers. When did you final hear of somebody launching a brand new fund to put money into small companies? You see many new enterprise funds and lots of tech founders, however small enterprise funds are uncommon. That is the issue we try to clear up. The accelerator will construct and determine a pipeline of alternatives, and the Kuramo Foundation runs it.
More than 20 managers are within the accelerator. Why so many, and what was Kuramo making an attempt to obtain?
Ijeoma Madueke: One level to make clear: these are the fund managers within the accelerator, and never all of them will obtain cash from the fund. In markets which might be much less developed, you typically have to construct earlier than you possibly can make investments. We are constructing the bridge as we go. Many of these managers haven’t completed organising their funds, so for some we’re doing extra incubation than acceleration. We have 22.
We needed selection. If small companies are the spine of the financial system, the managers who fund them ought to mirror that. We accepted funds in lots of sectors, together with area of interest ones such because the artistic financial system, the place we’ve got two managers. One supervisor has a multi-product technique constructed fully on Islamic monetary merchandise. Not everybody will get funded, and never everybody will end organising a fund, so we needed sufficient managers to give us an actual pipeline as soon as capital is prepared.
We additionally unfold the managers throughout the nation. So much of capital concentrates in Lagos, so we’ve got managers from the north, south, east and west. We are markets that capital has not historically reached, which we might name Nigeria’s secondary markets, the place fund managers are doing thrilling issues.
The ABCD framework got here from Kuramo Capital’s work. After mobilising tens of millions of {dollars} for funds throughout the continent, we noticed a niche for women-led funds and arrange a gender-lens platform underneath what we name the ABCD framework: Accelerate, Bridge, Catalyze and Develop. If funds don’t exist, we want to create them and assist them attain funding readiness. That is the speed up aspect, and it’s what the Kuramo Foundation does.
Bridge and catalyse is about capital. Take the supervisor constructing an Islamic merchandise fund. That is area of interest and untested in fund administration. We see rather a lot of exercise in business banking, bonds and sukuk, however a lot much less in personal fairness and enterprise capital. Can we provide amenities that bridge them? Warehousing and dealing capital amenities assist managers construct the observe file that traders need and take a look at their concepts.
Development is about assist. Emerging managers should not have the depth {that a} agency like Kuramo Capital has, so we offer shared companies similar to authorized assist and fund administration.
We ran earlier cohorts for women-led funds in Cape Town and Nairobi. This is the primary time we’re doing this in Lagos and the primary time for a wholesale influence fund targeted on small companies.
Olamide Adeosun: To add to that, WIIF will put money into about 10 to 12 managers throughout the nation, and we’ll goal an excellent share of them to be rising managers. A big half of constructing that pipeline is the work Ijeoma described and the programme the Kuramo Foundation is operating for these managers.
How did you choose the managers?
Ijeoma Madueke: Eighty-four utilized. We regarded first for differentiated methods.
Even for an rising supervisor, we requested, ‘What is your fund concentrating on?’ What downside are you fixing? Are you fixing it in a differentiated means, and are you arrange to execute? I had first thought we needed individuals who had every little thing in place, however many rising managers are material consultants, similar to engineers, who haven’t accomplished financing earlier than. Structure was one take a look at amongst a number of. You can arrange an advisory board and an funding committee and do all of the supporting issues, however the core query is your fund thesis. Why are you the appropriate particular person to be the final companion of this fund, and what makes you totally different?
We had about three folks on the panel for every interview and a scoring methodology. We additionally checked out whether or not the construction behind a fund may truly come to life. That weeded out fairly just a few candidates. We widened the cohort in locations as a result of we noticed potential and needed an even bigger pipeline. We additionally thought-about match with the sector. For instance, one supervisor is engaged on healthcare financing linked to outcomes, which reveals some of the revolutionary buildings coming into the sector.
What would rely as success for WIIF and the technical help facility?
Ijeoma Madueke: For the technical help facility, success means getting just a few issues proper. The very best measure could be a supervisor reaching a primary shut or elevating a primary cheque, however fundraising cycles are lengthy, so that may take time. We have a look at readability: a transparent fund thesis, a transparent method and buildings that may soak up capital, whether or not it comes from WIIF or elsewhere. The take a look at is whether or not a supervisor is investment-ready by the top of the programme. That will depend on how dedicated a supervisor is and the way prepared they’re for the journey.
We have additionally given actuality checks. One speaker on the in-person session advised the cohort he bought his home to maintain fundraising going for round six years. We need managers to understand how lengthy and the way a lot work this takes, to allow them to resolve whether or not to go forward.
Olamide Adeosun: We additionally had traders within the room, together with a pension fund on the panel, so potential managers may hear straight what a pension fund wants to see earlier than it offers cash. That was invaluable.
For us, success means we will put money into a pair of the funds that come out of the accelerator. If two or extra of them go on to elevate cash from exterior traders, that validates the muse’s work and the choice of managers, as a result of it reveals they’re investable. One panellist advised us that once they have a look at investments, they study 100 and fund two, a 2% success charge. Against that, a ten% success charge for managers could be a tremendous achievement.
Can you stroll me by the coaching and the timeline?
Ijeoma Madueke: The programme runs 12 weeks and wraps up in December. We take managers by every part of organising and operating a fund. Some of it was in particular person, and we are actually going deeper. We have a look at the fund thesis and the fund mannequin, and we advise on what to alter. We have a look at how managers method fundraising and what their pitch decks appear to be. We pair them with mentors who’ve made the same journey. We have a look at constructing the appropriate group, which is hard for rising managers as a result of expertise is difficult to discover and onerous to scale up.
We additionally cowl pipeline: how to supply offers and the way to run diligence. We cowl the authorized and back-end aspect, that means agreements, key phrases and the shared service suppliers that may assist a fund because it runs.
On fundraising, we clarify which traders to method. A pension fund is an unlikely investor for an rising supervisor at this stage, however we needed the managers to see what is feasible. The proper early capital comes from foundations and influence traders, who’re keen to take a danger and infrequently give concessional capital, that means capital on softer phrases. We additionally stroll managers by the categories of capital out there to them: the working capital and warehousing that Kuramo presents, technical help, and precise capital by WIIF.
You can think about the quantity of materials over such a stretch. That is why we name it a boot camp.
One factor will get too little consideration: belief. An investor offers cash to a supervisor they belief, and belief comes from speaking your thesis clearly, so the investor doesn’t really feel they may lose their cash. Fundraising is an extended relationship, and we train managers on this too.
How are you enthusiastic about exits?
Ijeoma Madueke: Exits come up in lots of of our conversations with traders, and a giant half of my work on the basis is elevating traders’ confidence to put money into Africa, which will depend on exits. For these managers, we usher in specialists who’ve accomplished exits, and we run masterclasses on exit technique. That is simpler right here as a result of these managers haven’t deployed capital but, so exit planning can form their technique from the start. We are constructing that into the curriculum.
You talked about managers being “funding prepared”. What does that imply?
Ijeoma Madueke: From the accelerator’s aspect, it implies that if an investor wants to have a look at your fund as a possibility, they’ll. You have the documentation in place, you may be shortlisted, and you may undergo due diligence. If you lack these issues, traders is not going to put you of their pipeline, and you aren’t investment-ready.
Olamide Adeosun: That is it. Your paperwork are prepared, your technique is evident, and you’ve got a powerful pipeline of funding alternatives. You even have a line of sight on the group you are attempting to construct, and your thesis is effectively thought by.
Why do you assume the accelerator issues?
Ijeoma Madueke: There are companies to fund, and that’s the reason the accelerator issues. We are supporting fund managers who’re making an attempt to do one thing for small companies in Nigeria. You can all the time put money into infrastructure or in fintechs, the place scale is simple to see. Small companies want innovation in how aligned capital reaches them. Programmes like this begin to bridge the hole in formal and structured financing for what we are saying is 90% of Nigerian companies.
What these managers are doing is difficult. When we are saying they want to be investment-ready, we’re speaking about small companies that maintain their cash underneath the pillow, that don’t need to scale or take formal capital, and that don’t need to hear the phrase ‘fairness’ or the phrase ‘debt’. These managers are educating these companies, organising buildings and investing their cash within the effort. I don’t need us to breeze previous that. It is necessary to perceive the size of the work, and I hope programmes like this may assist them as an extension of their groups as they navigate what remains to be a brand new atmosphere.
