Pipeline Development for Gender-Positive Investment Opportunities

British International Investment (BII) is the UK’s development finance institution and impact investor with a mission to help solve the biggest global development challenges by investing patient, flexible capital to support private sector growth and innovation.

BII engaged CrossBoundary to develop a gender-smart investment pipeline across the Industry, Technology, and Services (ITS) sectors in seven strategic markets (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria), supporting BII’s commitment to qualify 25% of new transactions as gender-positive investments under the 2X Challenge. Women SME’s worldwide face a significant shortfall in access to credit despite women anecdotally having lower non-performing loan rates than men.

The 2X Challenge was launched at the G7 Summit in Canada in 2018 to mobilize US$3 billion of investment by 2020 in projects that support the world’s women. It seeks to support businesses that provide women in emerging economies with access to leadership opportunities, quality employment, and products and services that enhance their economic participation and inclusion.

To identify and build a pipeline of gender-smart investments across the ITS sectors in seven focus markets, CrossBoundary executed a structured, multi-stage sourcing and diligence process:

• Opportunity identification: Generated a long-list of 750+ investment prospects through comprehensive market research and network activation using both internal and external channels.
• Strategic selection: In collaboration with BII, refined the long-list to 120+ high-potential candidates by evaluating investment scale requirements and market positioning.
• Due diligence: Conducted targeted assessments of more than 50 companies, evaluating business fundamentals, gender impact metrics, financial performance, and sustainability outcomes.