About Us
Our Mission
eha Impact Ventures is a philanthropic impact investing enterprise that supports early stage, high-impact, women led businesses in Africa. Unlike traditional business financing, we offer flexible and innovative financing paired with high-quality, local, shared business resources to ensure business growth and success.
Our goal is to improve the wealth and health of African women, their families, and communities.
Our Model
We are a registered U.S. 501(c)3 non-profit. Because we re-invest returns, the donor capital we receive is invested multiple times over.
Investment Philosophy
We believe that supporting women who are traditionally excluded from financing opportunities to develop and launch micro-SMEs is the best way to create generational impact in Africa. The core tenets of our philosophy are:
- Investing in women owned companies provides the best mix of financial and impact returns
- We prioritize impact returns over financial returns
- We support companies in ways that do not take ownership away from the founders, thus preserving African ownership
- Proper management and support allows for safer investments in “High-risk” companies
- Investing in a platform of related companies gives the best chance of success for mSMEs
Our Value Add
- We have a proven capacity as a high-value implementer and enabler that can be extended to our start-up community
- We have an extensive data gathering and analysis systems that can be used for business support (logistics, HR, finance, planning, etc)
- Our leadership team has extensive experience in Africa and our management team is located in our countries with investments which allows us to make effective decisions and provide local support
- We can support our portfolio companies with political and business connections needed to be successful
Our Locations
eha Impact Ventures is located in Nigeria with administrative offices in South Africa and the US.
What We Do
Accelerate Social Enterprises
We support women founders and SMEs through leadership training, coaching and mentorship and direct acceleration programs to increase their capacity and build successful companies.
Invest in Social Enterprises
We invest in companies directly, develop and manage impact funds, and work with entrepreneurs to research, design, and implement innovative business models.
Impact Strategy & Measurement
We supply innovative technology solutions for investors and entrepreneurs to measure and report on their impact frameworks. We support impact measurement and verification programs.
Support the African Impact Ecosystem
We perform research to support the impact ecosystem and participate in various impact investing networks and collaborations in Africa.
Accelerating Social Founders & Enterprises
- We provide funds to women to attend incubator programs or leadership trainings
- We provide SMEs with tailored support to help them build capacity by providing them with consulting hours with trusted partners
- We provide physical space in Kano and Abuja for founders to have access to internet, power, and networking
- We provide operational grant support to feminist organizations and NGOs working to build women leaders
Invest in Social Enterprises
Direct Investments
- We directly invest $10,000 – $250,000 in SMEs
Fund Development & Management
- We develop and manage recoverable grants funds with similarly aligned partners on specific impact categories and not only ensure impact is achieved but also strive to make financial returns for investors.
Business Ideation and Creation
- We work with business leaders to research and develop innovative business models, find entrepreneurs who are already in the industry and have the capacity to lead, and support them through investment and mentoring to implement the novel business model
Impact Strategy Management
We developed and manage an electronic impact measurement tool – Aya
- Transparent, near real-time impact investment metric reporting
- Pre-populated with GIINs IRIS+ metrics and helpful information
- Ability for Impact Investors to manage their portfolio companies impact in one location
- Ability for companies to directly report on their impact measurements
- Aggregate impact investment information shared across the platform
- We work with other investors in Nigeria to design impact frameworks, metrics, and reporting structures
- We work with independent impact verifiers to support their assessments of companies in Nigeria
Support the African Impact Ecosystem
- We participate in the impact investing ecosystem in Nigeria
- We are a supporter of the Impact Investors Foundation, Nigeria
- We support the impact ecosystem, which ranges from understanding the impact economy in specific countries, sector specific knowledge to entice new social enterprise activity and the rationale and motivation for measuring impact.
- We partner with impact and business hubs in Nigeria that incubate and support SMEs in Nigeria