Participated · Debt Financing · Feb 2026

Founded in 2013 by Cameroonian financier Cyrille Nkontchou, Enko Education runs 16 schools in 10 sub-Saharan African countries, offering International Baccalaureate and other globally recognised curricula. The group focuses on providing high-quality, affordable education that positions African students for entry into leading universities worldwide; more than 80 % of its graduates have secured places at over 600 institutions including Sciences Po, University of Toronto, University of Cape Town and Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Backed by its parent investment firm Enko Capital, the company acquires and scales already successful schools, integrating them into its academic model. Management plans to triple enrolment to 20,000 students by 2029 through additional acquisitions and organic growth. Enko’s strong placement record and pan-African footprint differentiate it in a market where per-capita education spending remains low and school access is limited. The company’s expansion strategy is now supported by fresh capital that blends equity and debt. This funding underpins both campus acquisitions and continued curriculum development aimed at sustaining academic excellence.

Led · Debt Financing · Aug 2025

Paymenow is a South African startup founded in 2019 that provides earned wage access (EWA) to let employees withdraw wages as they earn them. Its platform positions EWA as an alternative to high-interest payday loans and aims to improve employee financial wellness. The company plans to expand its services across South Africa, Namibia, and Zambia, while exploring additional markets with limited formal financial services. Paymenow has been scaling via debt facilities, most recently securing a ZAR400 million working-capital facility from Standard Bank. That follows a prior ZAR250 million debt facility from Rand Merchant Bank in 2023. Standard Bank is also partnering on technology integration, bringing its PayShap real-time payments solution and OneHub platform into Paymenow’s system to speed and streamline payments. Paymenow operates a responsible early-access-to-wages platform developed for the South African market, delivered through a secure mobile app that integrates with employers’ payroll systems. The product targets low-income earners to help them even out cash flows and avoid high-cost payday loans. The company pairs earned-wage access with financial wellness and inclusion education and emphasizes responsible behavioural change. Paymenow developed its own solution after finding UK offerings incompatible with local needs in SADC. Participation in Catalyst Fund provides validation and investor introductions that the founders expect to leverage to scale. The team plans to expand headcount, specifically hiring an experienced Client Success Manager to support sales and account management.

Led · Equity · Mar 2024

Planet42 offers a rent-to-buy car subscription that lets individuals who cannot get traditional bank credit access personal vehicles through partnerships with dealerships across South Africa. The company evaluates applications using credit bureau, affordability and alternative data with an automated scoring algorithm, validates documents, then purchases vehicles from dealers and rents them to customers. Vehicles are secured with mechanical and comprehensive insurance plus asset-tracking technology. Planet42 opened a physical car marketplace at Menlyn Park Shopping Centre in Pretoria to complement its online platform; nearly 2,000 South Africans have used that marketplace delivery service since launch. The business has delivered more than 20,000 vehicles to customers to date. Financially, Planet42 has raised significant capital to scale and recently secured ZAR300 million (US $15.8 million) in combined debt and equity from Standard Bank. Planet42 is an Estonia-founded, South Africa-based mobility startup offering rent-to-buy car subscriptions that purchases vehicles from dealer partners and rents them to customers assessed by proprietary scoring algorithms. The platform lets customers discover a budget, choose new or pre-owned cars from Planet42’s dealer network, then Planet42 buys the car and rents it on a subscription basis. The company has bought more than 12,000 cars for customers across South Africa and Mexico, including over 5,000 vehicles in South Africa in the last 12 months and 250 delivered in Mexico. Its dealer network has grown from about 700 to 1,000 dealerships, and Planet42 says 89% of its customers would otherwise have had no access to a personal vehicle; dealers report an average 26% increase in sales after partnering. Planet42 has expanded into Mexico as part of a strategy to address transport inequality and aims to scale globally to provide a million cars. The startup became carbon-neutral certified in 2021 and has raised capital to accelerate its growth. Planet42 buys second-hand cars from dealerships and rents them to private customers on a subscription basis, targeting people who lack access to traditional vehicle finance. The company uses proprietary scoring algorithms to underwrite customers in underbanked segments and says 89% of its customers would not have had other means to access a personal vehicle. Planet42 has a network of over 700 dealerships and has listed more than 7,000 cars to customers, growing 25% month-on-month in 2021. It has pursued carbon-neutral initiatives, financing a wind farm project in South Africa with money from carbon offset credits. The company has expanded beyond South Africa by buying its first cars for clients in Mexico, has set up an office there with two staff, and plans further expansion into larger markets. Planet42 aims to have bought over 1 million cars for customers across its markets by 2025. Planet42 provides car subscriptions by purchasing second-hand vehicles from partner dealerships and renting them to customers who are frequently denied traditional bank credit. The company uses a proprietary scoring algorithm to assess individual risk automatically and secures assets with tracking technology plus comprehensive mechanical insurance. Planet42 owns its fleet and generates predictable revenues from subscriptions, which the company says enables sizable debt financing and lower relative costs. Its primary market is South Africa, where it has bought and delivered over 2,000 cars and signed up more than 300 dealerships. The company reports that over 90% of its clientele are those banks deem 'blacklisted.' Planet42 aims to purchase 100,000 cars by 2024, is considering expansion into other emerging markets, and plans to raise a Series A in 2021. Planet42 partners with dealerships across South Africa to buy vehicles and rent them to largely underbanked customers using an automated scoring algorithm that evaluates credit bureau, affordability and alternative data. The company validates applicants with documents such as IDs, payslips and bank statements before purchase and rents the asset to the customer. Vehicles are secured with tracking technology and comprehensive mechanical insurance. Planet42 launched as CarGet in 2017 and is led by co‑founders and CEO Eerik Oja and CFO Marten Orgna. To date nearly 2,000 vehicles have been delivered and the startup is targeting 100,000 cars in South Africa by 2024. The company raised seed funding and will use the proceeds to expand its portfolio of vehicles.

Participated · Debt Financing · May 2023

M-KOPA uses a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) financing model that lets customers build ownership of appliances via an initial deposit followed by flexible micro-payments. The company operates in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana and is known for a prominent solar product in Kenya and Uganda. M-KOPA is expanding its digital financial services and plans to extend its financial services offerings and product sets. Last year it secured over USD 250M in new debt and equity funding to grow its financial services to underbanked consumers across Sub-Saharan Africa. Most recently M-KOPA obtained a USD 51M loan from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to enable provision of affordable smartphones and enhance digital connectivity for underserved communities in Kenya. The company also intends to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Kenya and Uganda, leveraging its solar products as part of that effort. M-KOPA provides asset financing that lets underbanked customers buy productive assets such as smartphones and solar home systems and pay via digital micro-installments. It operates across Kenya, Uganda, Ghana and Nigeria and builds customer credit histories through repayments; default rates sit a little above 10%. The company sells products directly and cross-sells financial services (eg, loans and health insurance) via partnerships and an agent network of over 10,000 people. M-KOPA reports roughly 3 million customers today, has directly employed nearly 2,000 people, and has provided over $600M in cumulative credit historically (now exceeding $1B). It has sold more than a million solar home systems, helping avoid about 2 million tonnes of CO2, and uses sustainability-linked financing tied to impact goals. Future plans include extending its financial-services and product sets, narrowing the gender gap in ownership, piloting in South Africa, and testing electric mobility products such as electric motorcycles. M-KOPA began in 2011 as a solar-power PAYG provider and has expanded its model to finance smartphones, TVs, refrigerators, solar lighting and digital financial services such as cash loans and health insurance. The company serves underbanked customers across Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria and Ghana, having pulled out of Tanzania. M-KOPA has surpassed 2 million customers and says it has unlocked over $600 million in financing for those users. Its model requires a modest deposit (example given: ~$30) followed by daily payments of roughly $0.30–$1, with an average monthly interest rate of about 3.1%. M-KOPA has scaled its field salesforce and staff — the active seller base grew from 2,500 pre-2020 to 10,000 in 2021 and the company added over 500 full-time positions across four markets in the last two years. The company plans to expand product offerings in Nigeria later this year and in Ghana in early 2023, launch in one new market this year and next, and scale its financial-services products and customer-relationship technology. M-Kopa began as a solar home systems provider and has evolved into a connected asset-financing platform selling a diversified range of devices including smartphones, solar home systems, and digital financial services such as cash loans. Its products are sold through a pay-as-you-go (PAYG) model requiring an initial deposit followed by daily instalments collected via mobile money. The company is positioned to become a leading African personal asset financing provider and operates in the East Africa region. British International Investment (then CDC Group) first made an equity investment in M-Kopa in 2016 when the product offering was primarily solar home systems. BII later committed additional equity in June 2021. The investment record lists the domicile as the United Kingdom and shows the investment status as active. M-KOPA has built an advanced pay-as-you-go platform that unlocks solar, information, technology and finance for millions of people. The company’s systems sit at the heart of the home, connecting lights, phone charging, radios, TVs and refrigerators and enabling customers to upgrade to additional appliances and financial services. Subscribers choose flexible daily payment plans that can be paid from any place with a mobile signal. M-KOPANET is M-KOPA’s patented telemetry and IoT platform that powers connected devices, while the M-KOPAIQ Analytics Suite analyses device performance, customer preferences and payment behaviour to drive operations and surface new service opportunities. Through its platform M-KOPA targets households moving beyond unreliable utilities toward owned distributed energy and digital services.

Led · Equity · Aug 2019

Nomanini is a fintech platform that serves the informal retail ecosystem, connecting merchants and distributors to each other and to global service providers. The system turns any mobile device into a retail point-of-sale tied to an interoperable merchant wallet that supports digital banking (including cash-in/cash-out), mobile, utility and entertainment services. By integrating payments, working capital and data analytics, Nomanini gives distributors a single view of their merchant network to optimize inventory and begin accepting electronic payments. Its data analytics also enable distributors to extend working capital loans to merchants so they can invest in inventory and grow their businesses. The company plans to use the funds to expand its financial-services portfolio to include remittances, insurance and other products. Nomanini is led by founder & CEO Vahid Monadjem and is based in Cape Town, South Africa.