Namibia’s first social impact venture builder, Impact Tank, celebrated its third anniversary on 6 September by announcing the launch of a one billion-dollar fund.
The event took place at the venture builder’s headquarters in Windhoek and aimed to honour indigenous heritage – one of its focus areas over the past three years.
Elzine Mushambi, the chief executive of Impact Tank, said: “Impact Tank was inspired by the developmental gap we were seeing in the country. We were seeing that the levels of unemployment were very high.
“In Namibia, on the one hand you have non-profits which are very much catering to donations, clothing drives or food banks, and on the other hand you have the financial services sector that works really well.
“We needed to have a business model that mixed the two worlds, and acts like a bridge between the very wealthy and the very poor.”
Old Mutual Namibia spokesperson Mufaro Nesongano said: “Impact Tank has played a significant role in being able to incubate entrepreneurs. Out of those nine entrepreneurs, I must say significant strides were made when they came to Impact Tank.”
Elzine Mushambi made a significant announcement, saying: “Today we launched and announced the Paleni Fund. ‘Paleni Ondjila’ is an Oshiwambo phrase meaning ‘paving the way’, and that is exactly what we plan to do.
“The Paleni Fund is a one billion-dollar finance vehicle investing in high-impact but under-capitalised businesses in Namibia and regionally in the Southern African Development Community.”
– unWrap.online
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