The Agri-Business Capital Fund (‘ABC Fund’) today announces that it has completed a USD 3 million loan to Colombia-based Finamiga, which focuses on lending to small farmers and independent workers.
The lending brings the Fund’s total number of investments to 23 companies worldwide, as it continues its missions to tackle poverty, improve the lives and livelihoods of smallholder farmers and increase opportunities for women and young people.
Established in 2014, Finamiga has been the fastest growing microfinance institution in Colombia for the past two years. Operating in 146 municipalities, among which 38 are post-conflict zones, it has disbursed more than 30,000 loans, and has and outstanding gross portfolio of over USD 13 million distributed in more than 10,000 active clients.
The ABC Fund’s loan will provide further liquidity and growth capital to Finamiga to enable it to disburse at least 4,000 additional agricultural loans and 1,000 vehicle loans for small farmers.
As a double bottom line institution, Finamiga designed its products with a central emphasis in strengthening microbusiness and rural agriculture initiatives through productive credit loans. Finamiga’s clients come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds with 32% of them living in vulnerable conditions and 9.8% in extreme poverty based on the Poverty Probability Index (PPI) Survey which is applied in every loan.
Finamiga’s loans allow farmers and rural clients to increase their incomes by helping them gain efficiencies in transportation costs and distribution, enabling them to use the funds as working capital to acquire supplies for their crops, as well as increasing their capability to invest in land.
Jean-Philippe de Schrevel, Founder and Managing Partner of Bamboo Capital Partners commented: “We are glad to continue and expand the ABC Fund’s mission to support smallholder farmers across South America, that may otherwise be excluded from the financial system. We are delighted to partner with Finamiga with the goal to help raise communities out of poverty.”
Felipe Mariño Rivera, Founder and CEO of Finamiga commented: “We are pleased to receive this loan from the ABC Fund, giving us growth capital to consolidate our mission of strengthening microbusinesses and rural agriculture. We look forward to keep improving the live conditions of all of our clients, especially in the most remote regions of our beloved Colombia.”