The financing gives the fund more capacity to provide private credit to growing African companies in financial inclusion, climate, and agriculture.

The fund is seeking a total of $70 million, with the latest facility taking it to 65% of that target, leaving $24.5 million to raise.

AHL is working toward a final close in the first quarter of 2027, according to the firm’s May 2026 fund announcement.

The transaction follows AHL’s $30.5 million first close, which was anchored by the AHL Charitable Foundation and three family offices.

ACF is aimed at high-net-worth investors, family offices, and family foundations seeking exposure to African private credit alongside measurable social and environmental outcomes.

The source of the new capital is important because fundraising for African private markets remains concentrated among a limited group of large institutional investors.

“There are brilliant, high-growth businesses across the continent solving real problems. And there is genuine capital sitting with family offices, local asset managers and global allocators who want exposure to African private markets. The two sides just rarely find each other in a structure that works for both,” AHL Venture Partners CEO Rosanne Whalley said.

The fund plans to issue loans ranging from $2 million to $10 million to profitable, high-growth companies in East, West, and Southern Africa

Its financing will include senior secured loans, mezzanine debt, and bridge facilities. The priority sectors are financial inclusion, climate action, and sustainable food and agriculture.

Early investments include financing for an electric-motorcycle lender serving motorcycle taxi drivers in East Africa and an organic soybean processor working with smallholder farmers in Nigeria, according to Ceniarth.

AHL’s credit strategy builds on nearly two decades of investing through the AHL Charitable Foundation.

The firm has advised the foundation since 2007 and says more than $120 million in debt has been deployed across Africa through the foundation and AHL-led syndications since 2020.

That experience has allowed the manager to build a lending product around companies that need more flexible terms than conventional lenders may offer, while giving investors clearer repayment structures and stronger downside protection.

“We started as a single-family office, deploying patient capital into first-time fund managers and equity on the continent,” Whalley said. “Our aim is to bridge this expectation and reality gap, to get more capital consistently flowing into African private markets.”

The facility comes as private debt takes a larger role in African investment.

The African Private Capital Association’s 2025 market report recorded a 57% annual increase in private-debt deal volume, the highest level to date. Across the wider private-capital market, $5.1 billion was invested through 530 deals.

Fundraising, however, fell 34% to $2.7 billion across 16 funds, and development finance institutions supplied 64% of commitments, with African investors accounting for 21%.

Those figures show why bringing more family offices and foundations into African credit funds matters, as it is expected to widen the investor base beyond development finance institutions and give established businesses another source of growth capital.