Noëmie Rosala Rivera joins Lendable as Associate Director of Investor Relations.
Mary Kahng, Head of Investor Relations, said:
“We are very excited to have Noëmie join the IR team. Her deep passion for impact, combined with her multifaceted experience in gender smart investing and blended finance investment structuring, is a terrific complement to the group. I am confident that she will contribute insight and outstanding service to our investors.”
Noëmie is passionate about “promoting economic empowerment for vulnerable populations in poverty or who experience high levels of marginalization.”
Her experience is centered “around channeling capital streams where it can have the greatest impact and spans a wide array of geographies and sectors.”
Before joining Lendable, she was “working at Sagana, an impact investment advisory firm, to support development organizations, impact investors, DFIs and foundations in creating impact investment strategies and vehicles, including blended finance structures or outcomes funds.”
She also “brings experience in gender smart investing, as she worked with both fund managers and portfolio companies to integrate a gender lens in their structure and operations. She started her career as a strategy consultant at EY.”
Noëmie has “worked and lived in Germany, Italy, Poland, Mexico, and the US, while extensively traveling to vulnerable communities to better understand their needs. She is a graduate of Sciences Po Paris and Universitá Bocconi.”
Recently, Lendable Group announced “the final close of its Lendable MSME Fintech Credit Fund (“Fund”) with $110 million of investable capital, exceeding the $100 million target.”
The Fund is Lendable’s fourth private debt fund that “provides on and off balance sheet debt to fintechs that support MSMEs and the digital business ecosystem across Africa and SE Asia.”
The Fund is “a blended finance vehicle, which successfully combines leading investors including aid agencies, development finance institutions and commercial institutional capital.”
As part of the final close, a large European based insurance company “joined the existing list of international investors including U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), JICA, FMO, BIO, EMIIF, SIFEM, OeEB, USAID and FSDAi.”
The Fund is “a five-year and nine months blended finance closed-ended Luxembourg Reserved Alternative Investment Fund (RAIF), with FSDAi and EMIIF providing the first loss capital tranche.”
The Fund marks “a key milestone for impact funds in the financial inclusion space, attracting a broad range of investors to the asset class, some of whom have not previously been involved in fintech transactions.”
The Fund is an Article 9 Fund “under the SFDR guidelines, with 100% of investments made into socially impactful and ESG underwritten fintechs.”
Lendable is excited “to deploy this capital to fintechs in Africa and SE Asia.”
The Fund will aim “to extend loans to over one million individuals and MSMEs and reach over three hundred thousand women end borrowers, generating significant income for those that have been financially excluded.”
This capital will directly “contribute to Lendable’s mission of reducing inequalities, improving gender equality and creating decent work opportunities and economic growth.”
Chris Wehbé, CEO of Lendable stated:
“We are delighted to announce the final close of the Lendable MSME Fintech Fund. It has been a great pleasure to work with our development finance and commercial investors to design an innovative pool of capital that will drive real impact across emerging, frontier and pre-frontier markets.”
The Fund will “utilize Lendable’s proprietary technology, Maestro, to analyze live borrower data from its investee fintech CRMs, which provides an unparalleled level of granularity across the entire loan book.”
It is this level of transparency, “both on an individual loan and portfolio basis, that enhances loan underwriting and allows for more effective and efficient risk management.”
This level of insight also “enables Lendable to monitor and verify impact and thus generate robust impact reporting.”
As of January 30, 2023, the Fund is actively “seeking investment opportunities and has already invested over $70 million with borrowers” in various jurisdictions.