About Lending for African Farming

LAFCo's primary focus is on enterprises that advance local and regional food security

About Us

LAFCo is a Mauritius based investment company providing financing facilities in the form of loans to African agricultural businesses that work directly with smallholder farmers. 

LAFCo seeks to generate social and economic impact for the African agriculture sector, including direct impact on SMEs and indirect impact on smallholder farmers through higher and more stable incomes, improved farm productivity, reliable markets, and increased food security.

Beginning with a first close of $15 million in committed funds, LAFCo aims to become a leading provider of capital for agricultural businesses operating in various industries, with a primary focus on enterprises that advance local and regional food security. The innovative blend of public and private capital will allow the Facility to serve parts of the market that are generally not being served by commercial banks or other financial institutions. As the LAFCo portfolio grows, the Facility will continue to raise appropriate funds from public and private sources.

  • Provide financing for agri-SMEs that support smallholder farmers
  • Improve farm productivity and increase food security
  • Generate social and economic impact

Investors

KfW Bankengruppe

KfW Bankengruppe, founded in 1948, provides positive impulses for economic and social development and for environmental protection worldwide. Internationally, it acts as the German Federal Government’s Development Bank and is also providing commercial project and export finance. The shareholders of KfW are the German Federal Government and the federal states. KfW has been active in development finance for more than four decades and supports more than 1.800 development programmes and projects in more than 100 countries, promoting social and economic development worldwide. It can therefore offer its development partners not only financial assistance but also the required expertise to successfully achieve development impacts.

For more information, visit www.kfw.de

AgDevCo

AgDevCo is a social impact investor and agribusiness project developer, incorporated as a not-for-profit distribution company in the United Kingdom. With support from UKAid, AgDevCo invests patient capital in the form of debt and equity into early-stage agribusinesses. AgDevCo’s mission is to reduce poverty and improve food security, and it has invested over USD 50 million in 47 agribusinesses in sub-Saharan Africa to date, connecting over 22,000 farmers to markets and generating almost 2,000 jobs.

For more information, visit www.agdevco.com

Investment Manager

Barak Fund Management, launched in 2008, has built up a track record of 11 years in African alternative credit financing and to date has provided funding of over US$5bn to a variety of SME businesses in more than 30 countries across the continent. Barak has African origination and fund advisory offices in Mauritius, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Ivory Coast and the UK, and has 25 on-the-ground investment specialists focusing on a variety of commodity sectors. It provides a variety of funding structures including both Impact, Development and Shariah-compliant funding. 

Barak manages 7 credit funds focusing on SME commodity trade finance and infrastructure development with a total AUM in excess of US$1.4bn to date. Barak provides fund management solutions to a range of global investors and funding to an extensive list of counterparties throughout Africa, working with direct producers and farmers, as well as traders offering a broad network across the continent. 

Barak’s core investment rationale is related primarily to the soft agricultural and food-related sectors, though the flagship STF Fund does also finance the mining, energy and other commodity-related sectors. 

The Barak investment approach is based upon the principles of discipline, diversification, collateralization and downside-case scenario valuation. 

The company acknowledges that African investments encompass a certain degree of risk given the nature of investing in a continent whose primary markets are influenced by a multitude of volatile factors. Each investment is thus approached with a stringent on-boarding process – using both desktop and on-the-ground due-diligence processes in order to determine the viability of a potential project’s funding. 
For more information, visit www.barakfund.com

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