The winners of the 2025 Africa Impact Investment Awards were announced at the Africa Impact Summit in Accra, Ghana on Thursday, 12 June 2025.
This year’s winners demonstrate how bold ideas, blended capital, and purpose-driven leadership are transforming development finance across Africa, from unlocking climate financing through AI to expanding access to capital for rural women entrepreneurs and scaling clean energy solutions for low-income communities.
The awards recognised outstanding individuals and organisations whose work exemplifies the principles of intentional, measurable, and scalable impact investing. This year’s winners stood out among a highly competitive field of 64 nominations evaluated by a panel of 11 judges representing leading institutions from across the continent’s impact ecosystem.
The 2025 Africa Impact Investment Award Winners include:
- Impact Funder of the Year: Nithio, for its innovative use of AI and geospatial data to assess credit risk and channel catalytic capital to clean energy SMEs through its FAIR platform.
- Impact Fund of the Year: KawiSafi Ventures, recognised for exceeding impact targets while reaching 213 million people with clean energy solutions and averting 45 million tonnes of CO₂.
- Financial Structure of the Year: Acre Impact Capital, for pioneering the use of export credit agency-backed finance to crowd in private capital for infrastructure projects—mobilising over 5.6x per dollar invested.
- Impact Intermediary of the Year: Edge Growth, for delivering customised enterprise and supplier development support to black-owned SMEs in South Africa, with a track record of job creation and sustained business growth.
- Impact Enterprise of the Year: Cherehani Africa, honoured for its technology-driven approach to supporting over 30,000 rural women entrepreneurs with access to credit and financial literacy, positively impacting more than 130,000 lives.
- Trailblazer of the Year: Evelyn Castle, celebrated for her cross-sector leadership in healthcare, impact investing, and gender equity. Evelyn’s ventures have raised over $250 million to date and continue to champion women-led impact enterprises across Africa.
- Special Judges' Award: AfriFORTIFIED, acknowledged for its standout work in food innovation and early-stage support to help SMEs bring nutrient-dense products to market, addressing both malnutrition and market barriers in Kenya’s food economy.
“The world cannot be changed without investment,” notes Dr Stuart Theobald, executive chairperson of Krutham. “These awards shine a light on the pioneers demonstrating that investing in people, planet and purpose can also unlock new paths to financial return. Their work proves that Africa can lead the way in redefining how capital delivers inclusive prosperity.”
As countries across the continent face budget constraints and shrinking aid flows, impact investing is emerging as a powerful and necessary financing tool. In 2022, Africa attracted an estimated $2.51bn in impact investments, accounting for 12% of global flows. Yet this represents just a fraction of the continent’s needs: $1.3trn per year is required to meet the Sustainable Development Goals, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
Tshego Bokaba 29 May 2025
“This year’s winners are building a future where capital serves people, not the other way around,” says judge Simunza Muyangana from the National Advisory Board for Impact Investment (NABII) Zambia, from the Impact Investing Institute. “We saw vision, rigour, and courage. These leaders are not just funding change—they’re building the future of finance itself.”
Impact investing is not only growing in volume but also diversifying across sectors such as clean energy, agriculture, education, and healthcare, where returns are measured not just in profits, but in lives improved, jobs created, and emissions averted. Another major trend is the rise in cross-border collaboration, pointing to a stronger, more connected investment environment.
“The real breakthrough lies in intentional, well-structured investments tailored to Africa’s realities—ones that prioritise measurable, lasting outcomes,” adds Theobald.
“Impact investing is not just about bridging financing gaps,” concludes Theobald. “It’s about reimagining how we define success, how we build economies, and who benefits from growth.”
