Moneda Invest, a pan-African alternative credit provider, has marked its 10th anniversary with the launch of Africa Funds Africa (AFA), a new initiative aimed at mobilizing African capital to finance the continent’s real economy. The announcement was made at the company’s 10 Over 10 anniversary event, which reflected on a decade of financing, empowering, and scaling small and medium-sized enterprises across Africa.
The Africa Funds Africa initiative focuses on a long-standing structural challenge facing the continent. Despite Africa holding significant private and institutional wealth, large volumes of capital continue to flow offshore, while local productive sectors remain underfunded. This imbalance has limited the growth of SMEs that play a key role in job creation and value chain development.
Data from the Africa Finance Corporation shows that domestic institutional capital across pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance assets, and public development banks already exceeds $1.1 trillion. Pension funds alone manage about $455 billion in assets under management, yet less than 3 percent of these assets are allocated to SMEs. In Nigeria, pension assets stand at ₦22.51 trillion, with more than 62 percent invested in government securities and only 0.66 percent directed into private equity.
Alongside institutional capital, Africa’s diaspora continues to contribute significant financial inflows. In 2024, diaspora remittances to Africa reached approximately $56 billion, making them the continent’s largest external source of non-debt capital. However, the African Development Bank estimates Africa’s SME financing gap at $421 billion, the largest in the world. This contrast highlights what experts describe as a failure of capital mobilisation rather than a lack of available funds.
Speaking at the anniversary event, Group CEO of Moneda Invest Africa, Ejike Egbuagu, stressed the urgency of redirecting African wealth. “Africa does not lack capital. What we lack is intentional allocation. Africa Funds Africa is a call to redirect African wealth that is currently flowing offshore into systems that finance our SMEs, create jobs, strengthen value chains, and build lasting economic impact,” he said.
Moneda Invest was founded in 2015 during Nigeria’s foreign exchange crisis, with a focus on closing financing gaps for critical SMEs in sectors such as energy, agriculture, minerals, and infrastructure. Over the past ten years, the company has facilitated more than $200 million in structured credit to over 130 critical SMEs across seven African countries. It has also received funding requests valued at more than $350 million and recorded zero defaults through its execution-backed, collateral-free financing model.
Egbuagu further explained the thinking behind the new initiative, saying, “The real question is not whether Africa has capital, it does. The question is whether that capital is deliberately deployed to build our real economy. The real economy that drives real continental impact. Africa Funds Africa initiative ensures that African wealth circulates where it matters most: in African businesses, driving jobs, growth, and sustainable impact.”
The initiative builds on Moneda Invest’s existing structure and technology. It leverages the Mauritius-licensed Moneda Capital Credit Fund, along with related businesses including Domena Commodities and Afrisand Logistics. It also relies on MUSA, a digital-first financing platform that supports transparent credit origination, automated risk assessment, real-time transaction monitoring, and seamless local and cross-border payments. This approach enables collateral-free financing to scale across sectors and markets.
As Moneda Invest enters its second decade, the company says it remains focused on scaling critical SMEs, strengthening execution capacity, and working with investors and policymakers to build African-owned, resilient, and long-term economic systems. Africa Funds Africa is presented as a call to action to remobilize capital for the continent’s real economy in a deliberate and sustainable way.
Moneda Invest operates as a pan-African alternative capital provider offering liquidity and execution support to SMEs within critical natural resource value chains such as energy, minerals, agriculture, and infrastructure. Established to address restrictive collateral demands, slow loan approvals, and limited working capital, the company provides zero-interest capital, no traditional collateral requirements, and hands-on technical support to ensure viable businesses can grow and execute contracts successfully.
This report is based on a media release issued by Moneda Invest.
