L – R: Temitope Imasekha, Board Director, Domena Commodities; Adnan Adeosun, Member of Supervisory Board, Domena Commodities; Habibah Waziri, Member of Supervisory Board, Domena Commodities; Stephanie Oronsaye, Stakeholder, Moneda Nigeria; Obiageli Egbuagu, Stakeholder, Moneda Nigeria, Ejike Egbuagu, Group Chief Executive Officer, Moneda Invest Africa; Ekinadese Osayande, Board Director, Moneda Nigeria and Moneda Invest Africa, Uche Wigwe, Board Chairman, Moneda Nigeria, Ngozi Ekeoma- Board Director, Moneda Nigeria, and Chief Chudi Illoh, Chairman of Supervisory Board, Domena Commodities at the just concluded launch of “Africa Funds Africa” initiative during Moneda 10 Over 10.
Moneda Invest, a leading pan-African alternative credit provider, has marked its 10th anniversary with the launch of “Africa Funds Africa” (AFA), a bold initiative aimed at mobilizing African capital to finance the continent’s real economy. The announcement was made during the company’s 10 Over 10 anniversary event, highlighting a decade of financing, empowering, and scaling critical SMEs across Africa.
The “Africa Funds Africa” initiative addresses a persistent structural challenge: while Africa holds significant private and institutional wealth, the continent continues to export capital at scale while leaving its productive base underfunded.
According to the Africa Finance Corporation, domestic institutional capital across pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, insurance assets, and public development banks already exceeds $1.1 trillion, with pension funds managing approximately $455 billion in assets under management (AUM), yet less than 3% of pension assets are allocated to SMEs. In Nigeria alone, pension assets total ₦22.51 trillion, with over 62% invested in government securities and just 0.66% channelled into private equity.
At the same time, Africa’s diaspora remitted approximately $56 billion in 2024, now the continent’s largest external source of non-debt capital. Despite these substantial African-linked capital pools, the African Development Bank estimates the SME financing gap at $421 billion, the largest globally. This disparity underscores a structural failure—not of capital availability, but of capital mobilisation into execution-backed systems capable of financing SMEs, strengthening value chains, and creating jobs.
Speaking at the anniversary event, Group CEO, Moneda Invest Africa, Ejike Egbuagu emphasized the urgency of mobilizing African capital: “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.
Founded in 2015 amid Nigeria’s foreign exchange crisis, Moneda Invest was created to address a financing gap for critical SMEs in energy, agriculture, minerals, and infrastructure. Over the past decade, Moneda has facilitated over $200 million in structured credit to 130+ critical SMEs in the natural resource value chains, across 7 African countries and received more than $350 million value of funding requests, recording zero defaults across its execution-backed, collateral-free model.
“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,” Egbuagu added.
The initiative builds on Moneda Invest’s proven decade-long model, leveraging its Mauritius licensed fund, Moneda Capital Credit Fund, and its related businesses Domena Commodities and Afrisand Logistics, as well as its digital-first financing platform, MUSA which enables transparent credit origination, automated risk assessment, real-time transaction monitoring, and seamless local and cross-border payments. This technology allows collateral-free financing to scale efficiently across multiple sectors and markets, turning African capital into tangible economic impact.
As Moneda Invest enters its second decade, the company remains committed to scaling critical SMEs, strengthening execution capacity, and partnering with investors and policymakers to build African-owned, resilient, and long-term economic systems. Africa Funds Africa is a call to action: to remobilize capital for the continent’s real economy, deliberately, sustainably, and at scale.
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