Verod Capital Growth Fund III

Nigeria and Ghana

Verod Fund III is the second fund being raised by Verod Capital to invest in West African SMEs. The fund manager has built a strong investment track record over the last decade and typically invests in consumer goods and services sectors, agribusiness, and financial services, with investment themes centred around regional expansion and import substitution.

Our investment

Verod Fund III will provide growth capital and value add to SMEs primarily in Nigeria and Ghana, thereby improving their productivity and job creation. This will help increase labour markets absorption capacity in the formal sector in a context of accelerating demographic growth in Anglophone West Africa.

Impact
  • Promote economic opportunities by creating jobs (SDG targets 8.5, 9.3)
How?

CDC’s commitment will support Verod III to provide capital and value add to up to twelve SMEs in Anglophone West Africa supporting the SMEs growth and direct employment creation.

StakeholderGeographyCharacteristics
Employees

West Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra, Leone and the Gambia)

Primarily low-income and middle-income.

Grid ScoreContribution
2.9-3.1

To help us direct our investments, we use a tool called the Development Impact Grid. The Grid scores every investment we plan out of a score of four, based on two factors: the difficulty of investing in the country and whether investment in that sector will lead to jobs.

  • Capital not offered in sufficient quantity.
  • By investing early in the fundraising process and supporting the Manager in engaging with potential investors, CDC supported Verod in reaching a viable fund size to execute its strategy. By final close Verod had attracted $200m in total commitments for Fund III, with a significant share (40%) of commercial capital.
  • CDC will help to reduce execution risks and any negative impact risks by supporting the Manager in strengthening its E&S, business integrity, and impact processes.
Risk
  • Execution: The impact case relies on the fund’s ability to deliver investee growth which would result in employment creation.

Understanding each ‘Impact Dashboard’ (PDF)

Environmental and social aspects

We are working closely with the fund manager to improve its existing Environmental and Social Management System, including delivering an action plan.

Key facts

Status:
Active
Region

Since 2012, we’ve only invested in Africa and South Asia. Investments outside these regions are from our pre-2012 portfolio.

:
Africa
Website:
http://www.verod.com/
Investment type

We provide capital in three broad ways: direct equity, debt, and intermediated equity (principally through investment funds).

:
Intermediated investment
Fund manager:
Verod Capital
Start date

For direct investments, this is the date CDC committed capital to the business or project.

For funds, this is the date that CDC committed capital to the fund.

For underlying fund investments, this is the date that the fund invested capital into the business.e

:
December 2019
Amount

For direct investments, this is the total amount that CDC has committed to the business or project (it may be a combination of equity and debt).

For funds, this is the total amount that CDC has committed to the fund.

:
$20m
Domicile

This is the investee company’s place of incorporation; or a fund’s jurisdiction.

:
Mauritius
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