US$335,000 catalytic funding will establish the RiTA Investment Network, targeting 15 businesses and mobilising domestic private capital.
LAGOS, Nigeria, 28 October 2026 – FSD Africa, with funding from the UK Government through the British High Commission in Nigeria, has committed US$335,000 (approximately £247,000) to establish the RiTA Investment Network, a new investment platform designed to channel domestic private capital into women-led businesses in Nigeria.
Established by Rising Tide Africa, a pan-African network of women angel investors, the initiative aims to mobilise US$2.7 million (approximately ₦3.75 billion) from Nigerian high-net-worth individuals, angel investors and family offices. The initial investment programme will target 15 small and growing businesses led by women, providing access to growth capital to help them expand operations, strengthen their businesses and create jobs.
The initiative addresses a persistent financing challenge facing Nigeria’s small and growing businesses, particularly those owned by women. According to estimates cited by the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Nigerian small businesses face a financing gap of approximately ₦13 trillion, while 19 out of every 20 are unable to access formal finance. Women, who own around 40 per cent of the country’s small businesses, face additional barriers, with their loan applications reportedly rejected at more than three times the rate of men’s.
For many women entrepreneurs, the obstacle is not necessarily the viability of their businesses or their ability to repay financing, but the difficulty of meeting conventional lending requirements, particularly collateral demands that often depend on ownership of assets such as land.
Mobilising domestic wealth for women-led businesses
The RiTA Investment Network is designed to address this gap by creating a structured channel through which Nigerian private wealth can be invested in promising businesses in local currency.
Paul Healey, Head of Green Growth and Private Sector Development at the British High Commission in Nigeria, said the initiative forms part of the UK Government’s wider commitment to expanding access to finance for promising small and growing businesses.
Women entrepreneurs are building successful businesses across Nigeria, but many still face barriers to accessing the investment they need to grow. This partnership between the UK Government, FSD Africa and Rising Tide Africa is changing that.
Together, we are building stronger connections between women-led businesses and investors, creating opportunities for more businesses to start, grow, and thrive.
The UK is proud to be part of this partnership, working together with talented entrepreneurs to create jobs and contribute to Nigeria’s economy. By building these connections now, we can open the door to even more investment in women-led businesses in the years ahead.
For FSD Africa, the initiative represents an opportunity to unlock domestic capital and strengthen the infrastructure needed to finance businesses that are often underserved by conventional lenders.
Juliet Munro, Director for Early-Stage Finance at FSD Africa, said the network would help demonstrate how local private wealth could be channelled into businesses with growth and employment potential.
Says Munro:
Nigeria does not lack capital. Women angel investors in Rising Tide Africa have shown for years that they will back women-led businesses with their own money. The RiTA Investment Network gives that capital the structure and instrument to grow, in Naira, and at scale
The emphasis on local-currency financing is particularly significant. Much of the growth capital available to African businesses is denominated in US dollars, creating additional risks for companies whose revenues are earned in local currency. When the naira depreciates, the cost of servicing dollar-denominated obligations can rise sharply, putting further pressure on business cash flows.
Nigeria has substantial pools of private wealth that could support its smaller and growing enterprises. However, the mechanisms for connecting individual investors and family offices with investment-ready businesses remain limited. The RiTA Investment Network seeks to bridge this gap by providing the institutional structure, investment processes and governance required to channel that wealth into viable businesses.
A structured investment model
Rising Tide Africa’s members have invested collectively for several years and have backed 39 companies to date. The new network will build on that experience, establishing a more formal investment platform supported by professional credit assessment, an investment committee, an advisory board, and robust monitoring and reporting systems.
Rather than pooling all investment decisions into a single discretionary fund, investors will have the opportunity to select the businesses they wish to support, transaction by transaction.
Financing will be provided primarily through revenue-based finance, a model in which repayments are linked to business sales and therefore fluctuate with revenue. This approach can offer a practical alternative for profitable businesses that lack conventional collateral or wish to avoid diluting ownership through equity financing.
Yemi Keri, General Partner and spokesperson for the RiTA Investment Network, welcomed FSD Africa’s support, describing it as an important step towards building a larger domestic financing platform for women-led enterprises.
“Women-led businesses in Nigeria are growing, and they need lenders who understand how they work. We founded RiTA to give investors a disciplined way to lend to them, one business at a time. FSD Africa’s support lets us build the structure, the discipline and the data to do this at scale,” she said.
The network completed its first transaction in September 2026, providing a syndicated corporate note to Ororo Waste Management Limited. Two additional businesses are currently undergoing structuring and due diligence.
Building towards a ₦-denominated growth debt fund
The US$335,000 commitment from FSD Africa is intended to finance the institutional foundations of the network during its first three years, before it becomes self-sustaining through fee income. The funding will cover the team, legal framework, governance arrangements and operational systems required to establish a credible investment platform.
Rising Tide Africa has already secured approximately US$1.5 million in soft commitments from its investor network. The initial US$2.7 million mobilisation target represents an ambition to attract approximately eight dollars in Nigerian private capital for every dollar of FSD Africa’s catalytic support.
The longer-term ambition is to build a track record that can support the launch of a US$10 million, naira-denominated growth debt fund dedicated to women-led businesses, with the potential to attract institutional investors.
Beyond deploying capital, the initiative also intends to develop practical resources that can help other emerging fund managers navigate Nigeria’s early-stage investment market. These include a legal investment template aligned with the Investments and Securities Act 2025, a playbook for implementing revenue-based finance in naira, and credit performance data on women-led businesses.
By documenting investment performance and building evidence around the viability of these financing models, Rising Tide Africa hopes to demonstrate that lending to women-led enterprises can be commercially sustainable and scaled beyond individual investor networks.
The RiTA Investment Network forms part of FSD Africa’s broader Early-Stage Finance strategy to mobilise diverse sources of African capital for small and growing businesses. Through partnerships with angel networks, private wealth investors, corporates, local fund managers and institutional investors, FSD Africa is working to strengthen the channels connecting domestic capital with enterprises that need it.
Ultimately, the initiative’s significance will be measured not only by the capital it mobilises, but by whether it helps establish a repeatable, commercially viable model for financing women-led businesses in Nigeria.