Thelma Ekiyor and Chapel Hill Denham, agreed to bring together their combined tracks, efforts and initiatives in SME and Impact Investing to form SME.NG, Nigeria’s SME Impact Investment Platform.

Chapel Hill Denham had developed a Nigeria SME Fund to invest in female and youth-owned businesses while Thelma had conceived the EBI Fund to support bottom of the pyramid women-owned businesses, with an accelerator, She Works Here and was the convener of the Funding Space an engagement forum to deepen the Ecosystem, it made sense to align our efforts and build a large scale platform to fill this key gap.

Our immediate focus is in Nigeria where there is a high  number of  micro and small entrepreneurs, lead to its description as “Nation of Shopkeepers“. SMEs are under-served in the Market. the founders being minded of the access to capital gap in SMEs in Nigeria and Africa, realized that access to finance alone, would not adequately address SMEs skills deficiencies. Accordingly, in building She Works Here (an all women’s accelerator), we have created a means to provide support and access to mentor-ship for SME entrepreneurs, as they access financing.

SME NG benefits from the partners capacity bringing together Chapel Hill Denham, Nigeria’s Leading alternative asset manager with The Funding Space’s vast networks in philanthropy, grant making and impact investing.