The Rainforest Connect Fund

The Rainforest Connect Fund is a unique investment vehicle that enables investors to participate in pioneering ecological businesses, effecting rainforest protection as well as poverty alleviation through financing entrepreneurial activities rather than donating.

In order to maximise environmental and social impact, the Fund invests capital and provides management expertise where it is needed most: into the currently under-serviced segment of early-stage financing for promising social impact businesses in Africa’s endangered rainforest regions.

Jointly initiated by GEXSI Capital Partners and a German family office, we have overall responsibility for the strategic and operational management of the Fund, including the following items:

Providing strategic financial and project development advice to the German family office;
Setting up appropriate funding structures;
Preparing and executing money flows into the project;
Implementing controlling and reporting mechanisms;
Building relationships to third parties, such as environmental organisations, co-investors, and provincial and national government agencies; and,
Coordinating all related activities to ensure that the projected social and environmental benefits are realised.

By GEXSI Capital Partners providing overarching financial, legal, and technical expertise, offering research resources and coaching for local management teams, and brokering long-term partnerships with strategic partners through the wider GEXSI network, we have supplied our client with a high-touch and responsive service.

With our support, the Rainforest Connect Fund has started off with two investments, which have been incubated over the past 3 years:

Establishing a low-impact integrated eco-tourism enterprise in Odzala National Park, the largest contiguous, that is, unbroken, rainforest region in the Congo Basin;
Creating a mixed tree plantation that acts as an environmental protective zone for Ankarafantsika National Park in Madagascar.

Both projects are well into their respective lifecycles, and work is currently underway to expand the scope of their operational activities, and deepen the impact of the targeted social and environmental benefits.