Partner Stories

Unlock Impact’s mission is to unlock the potential of Africa’s human capital to catalyze impact and drive the progress of local game-changing organizations. Unlock Impact achieves this mission by identifying and equipping promising young talent with managerial soft skills through a year-long fellowship program. Pace Able Foundation is supporting Unlock Impact’s strategy development and implementation.

Open Capital is a management consulting and financial advisory firm based in Africa. Through the Arcadia service offering, Open Capital enables organizations to achieve their goals by providing high-quality, local talent at critical times to ensure talent is never a barrier to growth. Analysts work full-time for 3-6 months, or longer on a rotating basis to implement projects, and provide operational support. To date, Arcadia has completed 120+ secondments across 7 Sub-Saharan African countries.

LRTT is a cross-border teacher development program that upskills teachers in low-resource contexts by delivering evidence based teacher training. Since 2012, LRTT has mobilized 1700 Fellows to deliver instructional coaching to over 5000 teachers in 11 countries. Pace Able is supporting LRTT’s strategic growth, in particular through funding an impact evaluation in Uganda.

SHONA is a program-based business development service provider in East Africa supporting high potential entrepreneurs building Good Business to address their growth challenges. They work with a network of experts who provide hands-on support to these businesses in different areas of work such as operations, sales, strategy, finance and branding.

Aflore is a financial services company empowering the un-banked of Colombia. Aflore identifies and partners with trusted financial advisors within communities and mobilizes them with support and tools to distribute loans and financial products within their networks. Pace Able is an equity investor in Aflore.

Cycle Connect increases income for East African smallholder farmers through productive asset-financing and training. They are entirely focused on getting smallholder farmers out of extreme poverty. Their portfolio of income-generating products includes oxen and plow, bicycles, motorcycles, grinding machines, and they have an innovations team for new product development. Cycle Connect has impacted 30,000+ people – increasing their income by 35% on average using assets throughout the value chain.

Peerlink Initiative Uganda (Peli-U) is a community-based organization serving Nyarushanje, in rural southwest Uganda. It has a vision to nurture a conducive and supportive environment for children and youth to thrive. It accomplishes this by establishing and strengthening community-based structures that address the basic needs of children and youth in education, health and social-economic empowerment.

Sanergy designs, manufactures, installs and services low cost, high-quality sanitation facilities, currently in Nairobi, Kenya. Waste from these facilities is safely removed from the community and converted into agricultural inputs, and sold to Kenyan farmers. The product design and manufacturing are under Sanergy’s roof in Kenya. Pace Able is working with the Sanergy innovation team to develop new products for unserved constituencies.

PEAS is one of the leading providers of non-state secondary education in Africa since its founding 11 years ago in Uganda. PEAS provides an affordable, quality education to students in rural areas who would otherwise not be able to progress after primary school. Pace Able is working to implement a mobile money tuition payment scheme.

Root Capital invests in agricultural enterprises that transform rural communities. Since 1999, it has loaned $B1.2 to over 670 businesses in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Root Capital has developed complementary mobile technology services that help businesses harness data on farmer suppliers. Pace Able is supporting a next generation implementation of a global data platform that includes additional supply chain actors.

Ignitia provides a highly accurate, hyper-local weather forecast, delivered via SMS to farmers across West Africa. Ignitia’s forecasting model was developed specifically for the tropics and is twice as accurate as global models. Access to reliable weather information allows farmers to improve farming practices, increase yields and maximize their profits.

Essential Medical Guidance (EMGuidance) is a mobile and web-based clinical support platform for medical professionals. It is off the ground in S. Africa and will expand to additional developing world geographies. Pace Able has contributed strategic and product planning assistance and is an equity investor in EMGuidance.

Fargreen is a pioneer in social business and a leader in Vietnam’s green food movement. Pace Able provided financial support so Fargreen could increase operations staff on its farm. We are also providing ongoing business structure consulting.

Hello Tractor, Inc. is an ag-tech startup focused on improving food and income security for the rural poor, by offering a Uber-like service – for tractors. Pace Able assisted Hello Tractor to purchase two tractors that will be leased to operators.

Mnandi Africa is a Zimbabwe based agricultural support organization, organized in a manner similar to a farm cooperative – today in a single rural village. It is dedicated to improving family income through productivity improvements: farm practice and mechanization. Pace Able provided unrestricted support to assist in purchasing tractor tiller attachment and multiple irrigation installations.

Soko works with artisan entrepreneurs to build their businesses, improve production capacity, and sustainably increase income, using in part a technology platform that creates a “virtual factory” by combining individual artisans capacity. Pace Able has worked with the Soko Nairobi technology team on best practices, system design and future product planning, and has provided an unrestricted support grant.

Watsi builds technology to finance healthcare for people around the world. Starting in 2017, Watsi worked with local partners in Rwibaale, Uganda to design and build Watsi Coverage, a technology platform to administer health insurance. Pace Able is a supporter of the pilot and Watsi’s Uganda-based efforts.