impact that compounds
We invest in businesses with the potential to generate compounding impact.
In 2025, solutions delivered by our portfolio companies directly impacted nearly 880,000 people across East Africa — advancing climate adaptation and financial resilience for low-income communities and women.
“This year has reinforced why impact investing matters more than ever. As climate pressure, inequality, and economic uncertainty continue to grow, we believe scalable solutions are essential to creating lasting change.
At Nordic Impact Funds, we back founders building businesses that combine strong commercial potential with measurable social and environmental impact.
Over the past year, we have seen how the right capital can help solutions reach more people, unlock further investment, and create impact that continues to grow over time.
These outcomes strengthen our conviction that scalable impact businesses will play a defining role in building a more resilient and sustainable future.“
– Lisbeth Zacho,
Olivia Byanyima &
Anne Katrine Buch Vedstesen
OUR INVESTMENT THESIS
Those hardest hit by climate change are too often those with the fewest means to adapt and recover.
They cannot access or afford the right inputs and technologies; they are left out of fragmented, inefficient value chains; they lack the extension services to convert to climate-smart practices; and they have no financial buffer to absorb a drought, a flood, or a failed season.
We invest where capital can close that gap.
Nordic Impact Funds backs scalable business models that increase climate adaptation and resilience for low-income communities across East Africa — primarily Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Rwanda, and Malawi — while generating an attractive return for our investors.
Our thesis rests on two reinforcing pillars. The first is climate adaptation and resilience: enabling communities to anticipate, absorb, and adjust to climate shocks through climate-smart farming, nature-based solutions, and diversified incomes.
The second is financial health and resilience: the savings, affordable payments, and insurance that let people invest in adaptation, withstand shocks, and recover when crises hit.
We pursue this across two sectors — agribusiness and food systems serving smallholders, and digital and financial enablers — backing companies that act as producers, distributors, off-takers, or disruptors in these value chains.
We are deliberately additional. We invest in the underfunded “missing middle” — SMEs at pre-seed, seed, and growth stage — with a strong preference for local and women founders, targeting more than 50% local representation on cap tables and more than 50% women founders across the portfolio.
Beyond who they are, we screen for the qualities that turn capital into lasting change: founders who pair commercial discipline with genuine purpose; additionality in the product or model, whether through systemic disruption or local value addition; and a credible path to scale, organically or through consolidation.
Every prospective investee is scored against our four impact dimensions, and as a rule of thumb we invest only above a score of 12 out of 20.
OMIA
CASE STUDY
We invested in Omia for its expansion opportunity and its ability to improve the prosperity of underserved farmers in Uganda.
GOLDENPOT
case STUDY
We invested in Goldenpot for its strong commercial foundation and its ability to tackle malnutrition and build farming resilience in Tanzania.
How we scale
Our work begins, rather than ends, at the point of investment.
Each engagement is anchored in a value creation plan agreed at structuring and revisited throughout the holding period, and our support spans three areas.
First, we offer capital and fundraising:
Flexible, fit-for-purpose financing — increasingly impact-linked — that meets companies when and how they need it, plus introductions to follow-on funding from our network of impact investors in the Nordics and beyond.
Second, we provide technical assistance:
Strengthening data, governance, and management structures so companies are ready to scale; maturing their impact measurement systems so they can raise impact capital; integrating gender-responsiveness and climate resilience into operations; and building the investment narratives that prepare them for successful exits.
Finally, we support ecosystem building, M&A, and exits by forging ecosystem building, M&A, and exits:
Forging local partnerships, facilitating linkages across the portfolio, and helping build larger, more durable companies.
This is how a promising enterprise becomes an enduring one.
By preparing companies early for a range of scale pathways — strategic partnerships, product diversification, mergers and acquisitions, and, over the longer term, public listings — we help them reach new markets, attract larger pools of capital, and deepen both their resilience and their impact.
Our envisioned Impact-Linked Finance and Technical Assistance facility takes this further, providing catalytic funding that directly rewards the achievement of impact milestones, so that every dollar unlocks more impact.
The pattern is visible across the portfolio.
Since our investment, excluding investments made in 2025, our portfolio companies have grown on average by 68% in revenue and 25% in headcount.
They have expanded reach by more than 50%, increased the clients and suppliers they directly impact by 113%, and grown the number of people experiencing reduced vulnerability and increased resilience by 41%.
Growth in assets matters — but our aim is for impact to deepen faster than capital alone would deliver.
"Growth in assets matters — but our aim is for impact to deepen faster than capital alone would deliver."
Case STUDY
Our Impact
Our framework is built to do two things at once: pursue positive impact (“do good”) and mitigate potential harm (“do no harm”).
We assess every company — at due diligence and then continuously over the holding period — against four dimensions of value to the target group:
Depth (is the change transformative or marginal?), Breadth (how many people are reached and directly impacted?), Inclusion (does it reach women, smallholders, and low-income groups?), and Additionality (would this have happened anyway?).
Two further dimensions capture the value we bring as an investor: our financial and non-financial contribution.
Each is scored on a one-to-five scale and benchmarked against peers, the wider portfolio, and the company’s own trajectory over time. This methodology draws on widely used standards — among them the IMP Five Dimensions of Impact, the GIIN, the IFC Operating Principles, IRIS+, and the 2X Criteria — and our fund reports as an Article 9 fund under the SFDR.
We are candid about the limits of measurement. An increase in reach does not automatically mean an increase in resilience, which is our ultimate goal. So we distinguish carefully between people reached, people directly impacted, and people who have genuinely experienced reduced vulnerability — the last captured through meaningful proxies such as access to irrigation, improved farm management (not merely training), insurance pay-outs actually received, and increases in income or savings.
Three principles keep the numbers honest. We report transparently, stating our level of confidence in each result.
We attribute credibly, recognising the many actors in a system and avoiding double-counting with co-investors. And we keep reporting enterprise-friendly, so founders can stay focused on running healthy businesses.
Adaptation is inherently hard to measure — context-specific, incremental, multi-dimensional, and unfolding over seasons — so we continue to invest in verification, qualitative evidence of lived resilience, and longer-term outcome tracking as our methodology matures.
Our Theory of change
Input and activities
We invest in and support SMEs with the capital, expertise, and incentives they need to grow.
- Flexible, fit-for-purpose capital matched to each SME’s growth journey
- Strategic advice through the scaling process
- Impact incentives that reward measurable outcomes
Investment focus
We invest in two sectors through a climate, gender, and inclusion lens:
- Food systems and agribusinesses, serving smallholders
- Digital and financial enablers.
Output
Our portfolio companies grow and professionalise, strengthening their performance and creating compounding impact
- Stronger revenue and economic viability
- Improved governance and investability
- Deeper and broader impact
- Greater inclusion, and better environmental and social risk management
Outcomes
Smallholders and low-income communities gain better access, higher yields and incomes and greater financial inclusion and resilience.
- Climate-smart practices adopted, increasing productivity
- Stronger market access and integrated value chains
- Household incomes increase
Ultimate impact
Climate-vulnerable low-income communities and women in East Africa thrive despite climate shocks, achieving food security and economic stability.
- Increased climate adaptation and resilience
- Improved financial health & resilience
- Sustainable livelihoods and women’s inclusion at scale
Input and activities
We invest in and support SMEs with the capital, expertise, and incentives they need to grow.
- Flexible, fit-for-purpose capital matched to each SME’s growth journey
- Strategic advice through the scaling process
- Impact incentives that reward measurable outcomes
Investment focus
We invest in two sectors through a climate, gender, and inclusion lens:
- Food systems and agribusinesses, serving smallholders
- Digital and financial enablers.
Output
Our portfolio companies grow and professionalise, strengthening their performance and creating compounding impact
- Stronger revenue and economic viability
- Improved governance and investability
- Deeper and broader impact
- Greater inclusion, and better environmental and social risk management
Outcome
Smallholders and low-income communities gain better access, higher yields and incomes and greater financial inclusion and resilience.
- Climate-smart practices adopted, increasing productivity
- Stronger market access and integrated value chains
- Household incomes increase
Ultimate impact
Climate-vulnerable low-income communities and women in East Africa thrive despite climate shocks, achieving food security and economic stability.
- Increased climate adaptation and resilience
- Improved financial health & resilience
- Sustainable livelihoods and women’s inclusion at scale
To read more about our theory of change, click below:
snapshot of 2025
We reached more people than ever
Our portfolio companies extended further into the communities most exposed to climate shocks, more than doubling the number of people directly reached and deepening access to the financial tools that underpin resilience.
879,130 people directly impacted (+113%)
387,368 people accessed financial products and services (+15%)
13,914 farmers directly sourced from by our enterprises (+231%)
And helped them farm and earn more effectively
Beyond reach, the focus is on what changes on the ground. More farmers gained the inputs, technologies, and yields that turn access into stronger livelihoods — even as we deliberately shifted from training volume toward the deeper outcomes behind it.
50,810 people provided with farming inputs and technologies (+52%)
29,430 people experienced an increase in yield (+28%)
201,645 people received training on farming practices (−15%)
Deepening real, lasting resilience
Reach only matters if it converts into resilience — our ultimate goal. This year that conversion grew faster than our assets, even as some income and financial-health gains held broadly steady against a far larger base.
111,077 people achieved improved climate and/or financial resilience (+41%)
84,481 with improved financial health and resilience (+53%)
26,596 with improved climate adaptation and resilience (+14%)
124,612 people experienced an increase in financial health (−3%)
72,724 people experienced an increase in income (−1%)
We backed the businesses where impact compounds
In 2025, we made 3 new investments and 3 follow-on investments, growing our active portfolio to 10 companies building resilience across Africa.
We allocated 60% of our portfolio to climate adaptation and resilience
Supporting businesses strengthening food systems, improving productivity and helping communities adapt to climate change.
We allocated 40% of our portfolio to financial health and resilience
Expanding access to financial products, services and economic opportunity.
We backed locally-led solutions
100% of portfolio companies have a founder or co-founder from the continent.
We invested through an inclusion lens
60% have a woman founder or co-founder, while women represent 45% of board members, 50% of management positions and 44% of employees across the portfolio.
We continued backing our highest-conviction founders
Alongside new investments, we made 3 follow-on investments to help proven solutions scale their impact.
impact over time
How we track impact from the time of investment
We look at our impact through four lenses: the total scale of impact, the impact compounded, the impact generated per dollar of capital under our management, and the impact delivered per dollar we have actually deployed. Together they show not just how much impact we create, but how efficiently we turn capital into it.
1 — Companies scale
Impact and commercial strength move together. Across the active portfolio, revenue grew 68% over the year — these are durable businesses, not subsidised ones, and their impact scales as they grow.
2 — The impact is compounding
As our companies grow, so does their reach into the communities most exposed to climate shocks. The number of people directly impacted has more than doubled in a single year.
3 — Every dollar entrusted to us went further
We measure impact against the capital under our management — and even as we closed our Evergreen fund and brought in significant new capital, the reach delivered per dollar entrusted to us more than doubled.
4 — Per dollar deployed: efficiency held
Measured against the capital we have actually invested, our efficiency keeps climbing — and with newly raised capital still to deploy, there is significant impact yet to come.
A future perspective
The strongest indicator of future impact is not what we have achieved so far, but our ability to learn, scale, and identify where capital can create the greatest value next.
As we look ahead, our focus is centred on three priorities. Strengthening Impact Measurement – continuing to evolve our framework and company-level metrics to better understand and measure long-term outcomes, resilience, and value creation.
Scaling What Works – supporting proven business models with the potential to reach more people, communities, and ecosystems while delivering sustainable growth.
Investing in Resilience – deepening our focus on sectors that strengthen climate adaptation, regenerative food systems, financial inclusion, and access to essential services, where we see significant opportunities to create lasting impact.
While we do not claim to have all the answers, we remain committed to learning, improving, and refining our approach as we build the foundation for the next chapter of impact.
Our ecosystem
Creating impact beyond our investments requires something extra. We actively engage with investors, entrepreneurs, industry partners and ecosystem builders to strengthen the conditions that enable businesses to scale and deliver lasting impact. Through strategic partnerships, industry participation, founder engagement and thought leadership, we contribute to a stronger impact investing ecosystem while creating opportunities that support the long-term success of our portfolio companies. As our network grows, so does our ability to connect capital, expertise and market insights where they are needed most.
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