Nairobi, 27 March 2024
Open Capital aims to transform Africa by advancing African economies and building future generations of business leaders, and is, thrilled to announce it has joined 2X Global, a membership and field-building organization focused on unlocking gender-smart capital at scale.
“There is much discussion around gender lens investing, but nearly not enough action to truly have an impact. We require bolder actions to change the status quo,” said Nathalie-Gogue Ebo, Partner at Open Capital, and Head of its Gender Practice. “Joining this collaborative of changemakers allows us to leverage our expertise, reimagine approaches, and work closely with ecosystem players to design innovative approaches as well as fostering greater sharing and collaboration within the sector. We look forward to sharing our experience over the past 14 years and learning from such a rich community!”
“We’re so pleased to have Open Capital as part of our membership here at 2X Global. We’re designed as an organisation to augment and amplify the knowledge and insights of our members by bringing them together in ways which allow for fruitful collaboration and knowledge sharing. So, we know Open Capital’s team will find both community and critical connection with our other members, particularly through our thematic communities of practice and peer learning networks. We are truly happy to have them on this journey with us as we aim to transform systems of finance for good.”
Open Capital’s approach to gender includes supporting diverse clients to advance women economic empowerment and gender equity across Sub-Saharan Africa in three key ways: supporting women-owned/led businesses to strengthen their operations and raise capital, supporting all business to integrate gender across their business models and supporting investors and donors to develop and implement gender lens investing strategies. Since its inception in 2010, Open Capital has supported hundreds of women-owned/led SMEs and other 2X eligible businesses raise over USD 420m in capital and published a number of publications on gender smart financing.
“We are excited to collaborate with other members of 2X Global to build capacity, share knowledge, and foster collaboration to enhance our impact in gender-smart investing and empower women-owned/led businesses across Africa, contributing to the broader global movement for gender-smart capital allocation” said Annie Roberts, the firm’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO.
About Open Capital
Open Capital Advisors is a management consulting and financial advisory firm founded in 2010 with a mission to support high potential businesses, investors, and industry actors develop scalable approaches to economic growth across Sub Saharan Africa. Our team of 170+ full time professionals works across 30 countries in Africa. We are proud to lead by example with our higher than industry average gender parity across the firm. Over the past decade, we have developed into a leading financial advisory, operational, and strategy consulting firm in Sub Saharan Africa, having built strong on the ground experience through 1600+ engagements for businesses, investors, development organizations, and governments. We raised more than $1.5 billion in capital for African businesses (including over $420 million for 2x eligible businesses) across a variety of structures, leveraging our international network of 500+ investors.
About 2x
2X Global is a global membership and field-building organization for investors, capital providers, and intermediaries working in public and private markets, across both developed and emerging economies. We engage our global network through a series of activities that advance intersectional investment agendas, scale the field, shift mindsets, and facilitate capital deployment. These include a series of Communities of Practice, educational forums, shared resources, certification and standards, and deal-sharing platforms. By working together with the full spectrum of investors, capital providers, mobilisers, and influencers, we will help shape the market on a whole new level, ultimately transforming systems of finance through the gender-smart deployment of capital across asset classes and markets.
