UNCDF
VC Fund
New York, United States
UNCDF is a VC fund in New York focused on Solar and FinTech. The UN Capital Development Fund is providing public and private finance work for the poor in the least developed countries.UNCDF provides grants, loans, and technical support to ensure that more households and small businesses gain access to financial services. With its capital mandate and instruments, UNCDF offers “last mile” finance models thatunlock public and private resources, especially at the domestic level, to reduce poverty and support local economic development. UNCDF’s financing models work through two channels: financial inclusion that expands the opportunities for individuals, households, and small businesses to participate in the local economy, providing them with the tools they need to climb out of poverty and manage their financial lives; and localized investments that show how fiscal decentralization, innovative municipal finance, and structured project finance can drive public and private funding that underpins local economic expansion and sustainable development.The New York, New York-based fund was founded in 1966.
- Total investments:
- 9
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 89%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries UNCDF invests in
Stages UNCDF invests in
Countries UNCDF invests in
Round sizes
Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
Round size
- Grant
- $50k–$5M
- Debt Financing
- $500k–$500k
Investment Focus
Industry
- Solar 3 (33%)
- FinTech 3 (33%)
- AgTech 2 (22%)
- Energy 2 (22%)
- Women's 2 (22%)
Stage
- Grant 5 (56%)
- Debt Financing 2 (22%)
- Pre-Seed 1 (11%)
- Venture - Series Unknown 1 (11%)
Country
- Kenya 3 (33%)
- Bangladesh 2 (22%)
- United Kingdom 2 (22%)
- Ghana 1 (11%)
- United States 1 (11%)
Team
| Name | Title | Investments | Links | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Julio Malikane
Digital Transformation Expert (Health and Education)
|
Digital Transformation Expert (Health and Education) | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Neha Mehta
Pacific Regional Lead
|
Pacific Regional Lead | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Olympia De Castro
Senior Investment Consultant
|
Senior Investment Consultant | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Peter Malika
Head of UNCDF Tanzania and Global Manager of Local Finance Initiative Facility
|
Head of UNCDF Tanzania and Global Manager of Local Finance Initiative Facility | Total investments: 0 | Find email | |
Stefano Barazzetta
Consultant / Renewable Energy Finance and Impact Investing
|
Consultant / Renewable Energy Finance and Impact Investing | Total investments: 0 | Find email |
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fido builds technology that enables fast and secure access to digital financial services. Their financial platform and machine learning risk models make instant credit decisions for customers with no financial track record while reducing operational costs. | $200K / Grant / Sep 04, 2026 | ||
| SokoFresh is a social enterprise that offers cold storage solutions and a digital market linkage platform to small and medium-scale farmers. It provides access to reliable, off-grid, first-mile cold storage facilities and digital market linkage services to farmers and buyers in fruit and vegetable value chains. | $500K / Debt Financing / Apr 22, 2026 | ||
| The mission of Omia Agribusiness Development is to provide African farmers with the tools they need to achieve maximum productivity, profitability, and sustainability. | $500K / Debt Financing / Apr 21, 2026 | ||
PayAngel
|
PayAngel is a cross-border payments and money movement platform that enables individuals, diaspora communities, and businesses to send and receive money quickly, transparently, and at lower cost. The company supports consumer remittances and business collections, with a differentiated focus on paying verified merchants and institutions directly(e.g., Direct-to-Merchant Remittances), reducing leakage and simplifying reconciliation.PayAngel operates across key corridors into and within emerging markets, including Africa, and also supports flows involving India and Bangladesh. The platform provides multiple access rails (app and, where applicable, USSD) plus business tools such as payment links, invoicing, QR-based collections, and a business portal/API layer for partners and enterprise integrations.Revenue is generated primarily from transaction fees and FX margin, alongside partnership-led revenue streams, with an operating model built around compliance, reliability, and scalable integrations with banking and payment partners. | $140K / Grant / Oct 06, 2022 | |
| TotoRegister is a transformative educational technology platform driven by a mission to protect and empower children while fostering enhanced educational outcomes. With a dedication to improving child protection, attendance monitoring, and data-driven decision-making, TotoRegister represents an innovative and holistic solution for educationalinstitutions and organizations. At its core, TotoRegister offers a hybrid digital attendance platform that not only simplifies attendance management but also leverages data analysis to ensure children's well-being. By promoting regular school attendance, TotoRegister takes significant strides toward fulfilling its vision of a world where every child can access a safe and high-quality education.Beyond attendance tracking, TotoRegister is actively involved in the development of new features, including a growth monitoring system. This initiative aligns with the company's commitment to advancing child protection, educational quality, and data-driven insights. TotoRegister stands firmly behind the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, particularly focusing on Goal 4 (Quality Education) and Goal 5 (Gender Equality). By harnessing technology as a catalyst for change, TotoRegister is at the forefront of innovation in education, passionately committed to transforming educational experiences for children globally. | $40K / Pre-Seed / Aug 01, 2022 | ||
| iFarmer operates an online platform that enables individuals and institutions to finance farming in a secured manner. While iFarmer offers advisory services, smart technologies and training to the farmer and also connects farmers to wholesale/retail buyers directly through a lean and connected supply chain. iFarmer also enables servicesproviders such as insurance, input and logistics companies to offer their services and make the agriculture financing and supply chain more efficient ad profitable for all the stakeholders including the farmers. | $50K / Grant / Aug 04, 2019 | ||
| Romoni is a 360-degree business-enabling platform for women micro-entrepreneurs powered by a front-facing B2C platform for beauty and fashion services and products. Their hottest categories are beauty, wellness, and tailoring on demand, and their growing categories of fashion and beauty products for B2C and B2B. They running a 360 support platformfor their women entrepreneurs, with later-stage growth financing and access to quality products and training, among others. In short, converting a skilled woman from a freelancer to a full-fledged entrepreneur with a growing entity and brand.The beauty and personal care market of Bangladesh sits at $6B+ and the fashion market sits at $10B+, with Romoni striving to capture a major portion of the SAM with strong NPS, low-cost influencer marketing, and low CAC. In the span of a year, they have served 12,000+ customers in two major cities in Bangladesh, provided direct employment opportunities for 600+ women micro-entrepreneurs. Romoni is backed by UNCDF, UNESCAP, and Accelerating Asia. The founding team consists of Armin Khan, ex-SCB and UNDP, Tarique, ex-Head of New Business of a $1B+ IT MNC, and Abidur, ex-Samsung. | $50K / Grant / Jun 27, 2019 | ||
| Mandulis Energy develops and operates renewable energy projects, with a focus on emerging markets. | $1M / Venture - Series Unknown / Oct 27, 2017 | ||
| Founded in 2007 as a for-profit social enterprise, d.light manufactures and distributes award-winning solar lighting and power products designed to serve the more than 2 billion people globally without access to reliable electricity. Through five distribution hubs in East Africa, West Africa, India, Southeast Asia, and the United States, d.lighthas impacted over 65 million lives with its products. d.light is dedicated to providing the most reliable, affordable, and accessible solar lighting and power systems for the developing world, with the goal of reaching 100 million people by 2020. For more information, visit www.dlight.com. | $5M / Grant / Sep 21, 2016 |
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FAQ
What does UNCDF invest in?
UNCDF invests primarily in Solar, FinTech and AgTech startups, most often at Grant and Debt Financing stage. Most of the 9 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in Kenya. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
What is UNCDF's check size?
UNCDF typically joins rounds of $50k–$5M at Grant and $500k–$500k at Debt Financing. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds UNCDF participates in.
How do I contact UNCDF?
Public channels for UNCDF include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
Who are the partners at UNCDF?
The team at UNCDF includes Julio Malikane (Digital Transformation Expert (Health and Education)), Neha Mehta (Pacific Regional Lead) and Olympia De Castro (Senior Investment Consultant). The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Oct 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
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