News
By Gerard Wynne, Senior Investment Executive at Small Foundation
The Ci Gaba Venture Capital Fund-of-Funds has reached first close at GHS 383 million, marking the culmination of a five-year journey. In doing so, it becomes the first private fund-of-funds domiciled in West Africa to mobilise domestic institutional capital, particularly pension funds, into private markets for SMEs. More than a fundraising milestone, it demonstrates a model that can begin to unlock local capital at scale.
African pension funds manage over USD 455 billion, yet most of this capital remains in government securities. At the same time SMEs, the backbone of economic growth, continue to face a persistent shortage of capital. Addressing this gap requires more than a single investor or fund, it requires coordination across the ecosystem.
Ci Gaba reflects that approach.
As a locally anchored, Ghanaian Cedi-denominated fund-of-funds, it provides pension funds with a diversified, aggregated structure that meets fiduciary requirements while enabling exposure to private markets across Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire.
Building the Market, Together
Reaching first close has taken five years of partnership, design and sustained market-building.
At the centre of this effort has been the persistence and commitment of Impact Investing Ghana, as sponsor, and Savannah Impact Advisory, as fund manager, who led the development of the fund from concept to execution. They worked closely with domestic institutional investors, including through the Ghanaian Pensions Industry Collaborativeand key participants such as Stanbic Investment Management Services (and its corporate trustees, AXIS Pension Trust and Enterprise Trustees) and CAL Asset Management Company Ltd, who helped shape the model and provided critical early commitments.
Small Foundation engaged from the outset, supporting the design and structuring of the fund, and ultimately committing as a catalytic investor alongside FSD Africa Investments to de-risk the structure, incentivise participation from local institutional investors and support the fund’s progression to first close.
This was complemented throughout the journey by critical operational support from FMO to Savannah Impact Advisory, alongside further grant funding and ecosystem support from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (through the RISA Fund), GSG Impact, Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Argidius Foundation which supported design, setup, and investor engagement. Local legal, tax, and financial experts also played an important role in contributing time and expertise to bring the structure to life.
This combination of actors, local leadership, catalytic capital, and ecosystem support is what has made Ci Gaba possible. What matters about this first close is not only the capital raised, but the collaboration behind it. Domestic pension funds have taken meaningful steps into private markets. Catalytic capital has done its job in enabling participation. And a structure has been proven that aligns both.
Together, this signals a shift in how capital can flow to SMEs.
What Comes Next
Ci Gaba is targeting GHS 1 billion, with capital to be deployed into fund managers supporting SMEs across the region.
The next phase is deliverery: to achieve strong performance, effective deployment and meaningful impact alongside returns to investors. Just as importantly, and in line with the systems-level change Small Foundation seeks to support, it is to demonstrate that this model, built through partnership, can be replicated.
If even 1% of African pension assets were allocated to financing SMEs, the implications for job creation, enterprise growth, and economic resilience would be significant.
Ci Gaba offers an early example of what that shift can look like in practice.
