Entrepreneurs and business owners looking to start or grow their business face many challenges. These include finding a committed partner who can provide finance that is structured according to the needs of their business and being able to access experienced business support, services and networks that improve their chances of success.
We operate a model of integrated business support and finance. You will meet with our investment managers who will work with you, providing business guidance before we invest and ongoing business support for the investment term.
We understand the challenges faced by SMEs operating in difficult environments. With a new and interesting approach that assesses businesses’ plans based on how successful they appear to be, we have supported thousands of entrepreneurs and business owners looking to start or develop their enterprises.
We provide more than just money. We provide support beyond finance. We partner with committed entrepreneurs helping them achieve their ambitions and business aims through starting or growing successful enterprises.
Our Criteria:
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We work with hands-on entrepreneurs of locally managed formal or informal businesses.
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Our clients represent businesses in a variety of sectors including health, education, energy, wholesale, and manufacturing.
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Our team is passionate about helping dedicated entrepreneurs who recognise that they need business skills and connections in the market to improve their chances of developing.
We realise business owners often lack the track record or collateral needed to secure loans from traditional lending institutions, and so we choose clients based on our proprietary viability model.
FINANCE
You can use the finance for a variety of business-related purposes to:
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Invest in property or assets related to your business.
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Buy a business or a franchise
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Grow your business or new product line; or
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Start a business
How much will we invest in you business:
We will invest between US$100,000 and US$1.5 million. Our investments are usually made in local currency unless your business generates revenue in US dollars and so can make US dollar repayments.
How much do we charge?
Our pricing is open and clear and we will discuss it with you thoroughly during the application process. We work it out on a case-by-case basis taking into account the unique characteristics and risk profile of your business and its owners. We also include our added-value business support. We are usually able to provide an idea of the pricing range within two to three weeks, depending on how quickly you can give us the relevant documents. However, our formal offer letter will set out details of the pricing.
BUSINESS SUPPORT
GroFin provides business support to SMEs from the time of application all the way through to the final repayment of loans. Business support is ongoing, continuous and focuses on the things that matter - to grow your business, support sustainable employment and make a difference to your community and local economy.
Once approved, you will receive ongoing support to fulfil your business plans, troubleshoot challenges and upgrade your operations. This support contains many parts, such as the following.
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Providing industry-specific technical expertise from our partners
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Analysing your financial statements
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Reducing risk
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Helping you with governing environmental, social and governance issues
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Improving your accounting systems
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Analysing and recommending marketing and operations improvements
INVESTMENT CRITERIA
We invest in small and growing businesses that have the ability to scale up and be sustainable as well as create positive impact in the communities in which they operate.
We consider applications for funding from businesses which fulfil our investment criteria as below:
- Geography: We finance and support businesses that operate in countries where GroFin has an operational office namely in South Africa, Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Egypt, Oman, Iraq, and Jordan, to enable us to offer regular value-adding business support. Applications from businesses that operate in other countries cannot be considered.
- Sectors of focus: The business operates in one of the investment focus sectors of Education, Healthcare, Agri-processing, Manufacturing, Energy, Water/Sanitation and labour-intensive businesses. Other sectors can be considered on a case-by-case basis.
- Business Profile: We typically invest in businesses with these maturity profiles:
- Early stage (1-3 years)
Start-ups are considered when they are backed by an entrepreneur with significant experience, track record and material financial commitment to the venture.
- Early maturity (3-6 years)
- Mature (>6 years)
GroFin considers businesses in all sectors with exception of those activities that have significant potential negative social and environmental impacts. We also do not invest in financial intermediation businesses or non profits such as NGOs, and community groups. Primary agriculture is only considered if it takes place in a controlled environment and at scale.
View Grofin's exclusion list here
- Investment Size: We invest between US$ 100K – US$ 1.5 M in the business, preferably as self-liquidating debt.
- Duration of finance: Typically, 3-8 years. Loan repayment term must be aligned with the purpose of the loan.
- Entrepreneur Profile: The entrepreneur should have significant own investment in the business, have the ability to manage a business – from operations, sales, financial management, administration, and leadership. They must be willing to work with us as a value adding financier and share management information regularly. They must have growth ambition and demonstrate integrity as well as professionalism in their dealings.
- Collateral requirements: Though GroFin has no minimum requirement, we do expect entrepreneurs to (partly) secure the loan if collateral is available. Quality and value of collateral does play an important part in the overall risk assessment. Personal guarantees of the entrepreneur(s) is required.
- Social Impact: The business must be able to have a measurable impact in terms of the number of jobs supported and sustained, female ownership, female employment and semi-/unskilled labour. SMEs that provide indirect job opportunities (e.g. training, skills development) and/or environmental services (water, waste, energy, ecotourism) are also attractive to GroFin.
- Business support: GroFin delivers business support to clients prior to the investment and during the tenor of the loan – focusing on improving business viability, sustainability and growth through identifying material business risks/opportunities across a range of generic areas as identified during the screening/due diligence stage. For this reason, entrepreneurs need to be receptive to receiving advice and implementing recommendations, normally around improving formalisation of their business.
Complete a preassessment test here
Source: http://www.grofin.com/
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