Industry leaders gathering in Accra to mark a new funding milestone for Growth Investment Partners (GIP) delivered a pointed message this week: the central obstacle holding back Ghana’s Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) is not the absence of money, but the persistent mismatch between how capital is structured and what growing businesses actually need.
The event, which formalised the entry of Norfund and Axis Pension Trust as investors into GIP, drew regulators, development finance institutions, and pension fund managers into a broader conversation about how to build a durable financing architecture for Ghana’s private sector. The fresh capital injection, comprising 15 million United States dollars from Norfund and 5 million dollars from Axis Pension Trust, raises GIP’s total capital base to approximately 70 million dollars in cedi equivalent.
Albert Essien, Board Chairman of GIP, framed the challenge in structural terms. Too many Ghanaian businesses, he argued, collapse not from a lack of potential but because the financing they receive is misaligned with their growth timelines. His remarks pointed to a well-documented gap in Ghana’s financial market: enterprises that have outgrown microfinance but remain too small or too risky for conventional bank lending are routinely denied the patient capital they need to scale.
Since its launch in 2023, GIP has built a portfolio of 16 companies, deployed over 40 million dollars into Ghanaian businesses, and supported more than 3,356 direct jobs, including 533 new positions created across manufacturing, agriculture, financial services, and healthcare.
Anthony Degbato of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which licensed GIP as a private equity fund in 2023, described SMEs as critical to industrial expansion and economic diversification. He noted that GIP’s model specifically targets businesses that sit in the unserved middle ground between microfinance and large-scale bank credit. Equally significant, he said, is GIP’s cedi-denominated structure, which shields portfolio companies from the foreign exchange volatility that has historically undermined business planning in Ghana.
Victor Azuma Mejida of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) pointed to the scale of patient capital already sitting within the country’s institutional framework. Norfund’s regional director for West Africa, Naana Winful Fynn, noted that SMEs contribute approximately 75 percent of Ghana’s gross domestic product and require tailored financing solutions that provide patient, flexible capital in local currency. With pension assets now estimated at approximately GH¢100 billion, Mejida said the sector is well-positioned to direct long-term capital toward enterprise growth and infrastructure, provided the right investment vehicles exist to channel it.
John Mikal Kvistad, Norway’s Ambassador to Ghana, offered an international perspective, noting that economies like Norway are built primarily on SMEs rather than a concentration of large corporations. He observed that Ghana’s enterprise sector holds comparable potential but remains constrained by limited access to private risk capital.
GIP’s investment model combines financing with operational and strategic support, offering instruments such as mezzanine and royalty-based funding designed to unlock long-term growth without forcing businesses into structures that do not fit their stage of development.
Jacob Kholi, Chief Executive and Investment Officer of GIP, said the new capital would allow the platform to reach more businesses and deepen its market impact. Leslie Maasdorp, Chief Executive Officer of British International Investment (BII), described the entry of the two new investors as evidence of growing interest in building a stronger base of long-term capital to help Ghanaian businesses succeed.
Stakeholders at the event agreed that closing Ghana’s SME financing gap will require more than individual fund commitments. A coordinated approach combining patient capital, policy support, and business capacity building, they said, remains essential to translating enterprise potential into sustained economic growth.
