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Impact Investing – making climate solutions investible

Small and growing businesses are already building the climate solutions their economies need - from climate-smart agriculture and clean energy to greener homes. What holds many of them back is not potential, but access to the right finance, expertise and market connections.
Swisscontact helps bridge that gap. We prepare promising enterprises for investment, provide fit-for-purpose financing and support, and connect them with the buyers and investors who can fuel their next stage of growth.
Foundations, family offices, high-net-worth individuals and other impact-focused partners can join us from the very first cohort. From the initial conversation through to measurable real-world impact, we work alongside you - helping turn early potential into investable businesses and scalable climate solutions that advance a just transition where it matters the most.

For more than 60 years, Swisscontact has helped small and medium-sized enterprises grow and connected them to markets – today in 42 countries, with 95% local staff, more than 540,000 enterprises supported and USD 1.7 billion mobilised. Many of the businesses we work with reach the same point: too large for microfinance, too small and too unconventional for banks and funds, and not yet visible or prepared enough for the investors who are looking for them.

What we offer

Small and growing businesses are the backbone of the economies in which we work. They create most of the jobs, but they rarely get the financing they need to take the next step. Swisscontact closes that gap. For decades our local teams have helped these enterprises grow. Today we go one step further and connect them with the capital they need.

Our offer combines three elements: capability, capital and connections. We prepare selected enterprises for external financing, provide that financing on terms adapted to their reality, and link them to the buyers, networks and investors that keep them growing. Together with you, we turn an enterprise that banks and funds overlook into an investable, growing business – and we measure what that growth delivers for people, communities and the planet.

CAPABILITY – The Growth Academy

A 12-month investment readiness and acceleration programme before investment, with continued support once the financing arrives. This accelerates growth, makes businesses more resilient and opens the door to further financing.

CAPITAL The Investment Vehicle

Asset financing and flexible working capital loans to meet demand the business already has. Financing adapted to the SME’s needs, no the other way around.

CONNECTIONS The Scaling Network

We link enterprises to corporate buyers, value chains and peer networks, and to investors who can finance their next stage of growth. Growth becomes durable instead of depending on a single partner – and the impact outlives our intervention.

Ways to get involved

BUILD THE CLIMATE INVESTMENT PIPELINE

The Growth Academy, our investment readiness programme, helps selected enterprises strengthen their financial management, governance and growth strategy while building the systems and confidence to take on capital and scale. By funding a cohort, you do more than prepare individual businesses: you help build a deeper, more investable market for locally rooted climate solutions.

Learn more about the Growth Academy

PUT CATALYTIC CAPITAL TO WORK

Your donation becomes catalytic capital: loans to climate SMEs from our acceleration programmes and our partners' networks, businesses that banks won't yet finance. As a nonprofit, our mission-aligned and impact-first approach means we never take any profit from these loans. Every repayment is lent again, so each franc you give keeps creating impact. And once these businesses have a repayment record, commercial lenders can finance them too.

Talk to us about the Investment Vehicle

BRING THE MODEL TO NEW COUNTRIES

The model travels well. Our country teams bring decades of local presence and already know the enterprises they work with. Our Innovation Lab records what works, so a new market starts from experience rather than from scratch. We bring the method, the local teams and the businesses, you bring the funding or the mandate.

Discuss a regional partnership

INVEST ALONGSIDE US

If you invest your own capital and are looking for opportunities, we give you access to enterprises that we have assessed against a common standard. Co-invest in individual transactions, or join the Scaling Network and finance the next stage of growth for proven businesses. You gain a partner on the ground after the investment is made.

Request access to our investment opportunities

Get involved.

We show you all the possibilities.

Victoria McInnes
+351 914 162 832
[email protected]

Contact Us

Your benefits and our success factors

  1. Strong local presence: decades of work in the markets where we invest, 95% local staff and long-standing relationships with the enterprises we finance. We know the owners, the markets and the numbers.
  2. Preparation before capital: we do not simply select enterprises, we prepare them, finance them and stay with them afterwards. Everything comes from one source, which lowers your risk and raises the chances of success for the business.
  3. Funding that works more than once: capital that is lent, repaid and lent again reaches businesses that commercial investors would not finance, and shows others that these enterprises are creditworthy.
  4. Impact over profit: as a not-for-profit foundation, our incentives are aligned with the entrepreneur. Every dollar invested goes to impact and stays in the mission.
  5. Traceable results: a standardised results-measurement system records what our capital achieves: enterprise growth, jobs and income, repayment performance and the capital other investors bring in alongside us.

Let's invest in impact together

Whether you are a foundation, a family office, an impact fund or a development finance institution – we look forward to engaging in dialogue with you. Together, we can finance the businesses that a fairer economy needs.