- Loan Successfully Funded On 12 Aug 2022 ​
EP Capital Micro Lending, Kenya (partial repaid plus new loan)
EP Capital
- Narok, Kenya
Menu
- 51,000 USD
Loan successfully funded
EP Capital, a micro-lending organization in Kenya, provides micro-loans to unbanked and underbanked businesses in the Maasai Mara. Red Hat Impact helped EP Capital develop a growth strategy to use up to USD 500,000 to expand its lending operations. This strategy involves a series of crowd loans, contingent on performance. With Red Hat Impact’s support, EP Capital has successfully raised and deployed two crowd loans totaling USD 100,000. This current loan targets an additional USD 100,000.
- 6 Lenders
Committed
- 24 months
Loan Period
- 10%
Interest Rate
- BACKGROUND
Loan summary
EP Capital’s mission is to become the leading micro-lending organisation in the Maasai Mara and beyond, with a focus on providing fair, transparent , accessible and affordable access to capital.
This impact loan would be the third tranche of lending supplied to EP Capital to enable its growth and development, driving direct impact through micro-lending to the unbanked and underbanked, and indirect impacts to women and girls supported via EP Capital’s Foundation Tumaini Bora.
Borrower's mission
EP Capital is disrupting conventional micro lending practices in Kenya by removing the need for often unworkable collateral requirements and reaching out to the unbanked, underbanked and those who are not deemed to qualify for traditional loans in rural Kenya. At EP Capital, micro-credit is used as a cost effective weapon to fight poverty and it serves as a catalyst in the overall development of socio-economic conditions of the poor and of SMEs that have been kept outside mainstream banking and traditional micro lending circles.
RHI is working with EP Capital to scale its micro-lending operations so it can scale its impact. Over the past 12 months, EP Capital has been building and improving its systems and processes, establishing a sound commercial platform for growth. To unlock growth and establish scale, EP Capital is seeking investment of up to USD500,000 over three years, to grow its lending capacity and to supply the working capital it needs to invest in further business development. This loan would provide the next tranche of investment towards the target amount.
The activities funded by this loan are helping to achieve the above Sustainable Development Goals as defined by the UN.
Intermediary's experience with impact enterprises
For more than 8 years, Red Hat Impact has helped impact enterprises by raising capital and providing other kinds of business and strategy support. We have raised more than $3M from our network of impact investors, and loaned this capital to support 30 enterprises. We use a crowd-lending model to raise loan capital. As of May 2024, we maintain a 98% success rate on loan repayment. We establish close working relationships with all of the impact enterprises we raise debt capital for, and co-manage risks with them during the loan term.
- IMPACT
Impacts and how they are measured
The impact loan will continue to support EP Capital’s mission to scale its social impact along the same lines of what it has been able to achieve so far. The key social impact is about enabling access to micro lending to those who otherwise cannot. An expanded team of field officers is already helping more people in the region to access capital at their doorstep. With a focus on providing micro loans to conservancies and SMEs, EP Capital enables families and individuals to trade and fund housing, heath and education. EP Capital will advance more loans to struggling, thriving and scaling businesses to help them expand their operations. They will be able to empower more poor rural widows and women to venture into small handcraft businesses. The returns generated from the micro-loans facilitated by this loan will also enable EP Capital to further grow its team, creating some more much needed local employment. EP Capital can readily quantify, measure and track our access to finance impact. We can also measure the impacts we deliver through our Foundation (see below). EP Capital is working with Red Hat Impact to explore how we could deepen our impact measurement.
Ready to lend?
This loan is not currently accepting subscriptions, but we invite you to check out some of the other live loans on the platform. In order to participate in loans you must be a registered lender on the LendForGood platform. If this is your first time lending with us we’ll guide you through the process to first get registered. Thank you for lending your passion!