As U.S. DFI Capital Melts Away, Africa’s Bold Ventures Enter Uncertain Waters

In rural Kenya, it used to be normal to go without power. No electricity meant no cold storage, no internet, and no way to charge a phone. That started to change when M-KOPA, a local fintech, began offering pay-as-you-go solar kits and smartphones to low-income households who may not have access to traditional credit.

Efforts like this require some financial muscle, and for M-KOPA, it didn’t come from the government or local partners; it got some tailwind from a USD 51 M investment by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC). Of course, M-KOPA was already scrapping and solving real problems, but that funding was instrumental in helping M-KOPA expand electricity and smartphone access to off-grid communities, schools, clinics, and small businesses.

These kinds of stories aren’t rare, there are similar fingerprints by the DFC all over the continent: a USD 90 M equity investment in Cassava Technologies to drive Africa’s digital transformation; a USD 100 M loan provision to Nigeria’s First City Monument Bank to support women-led businesses, another USD 30 M to AgDevCo for agricultural lending, a USD 200 M to Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company, and USD 140 M for a wind plant in Egypt—plus many other developmental and infrastructure projects.

The thing is, over the past five years, the DFC has quietly become one of Africa’s most important financial partners, backing over USD 13 B across 300 projects and catalysing investment in the digital, finance, energy, healthcare, and infrastructure sectors.