A landmark study commissioned by two European development finance institutions has put a precise — and striking — figure on a problem that investors, founders and policymakers in sub-Saharan Africa have long discussed in approximate terms. Businesses founded and led by Black African entrepreneurs face a combined financing gap of $209 billion across just five markets. That figure, published on 13 October 2026, comes from research firm Open Capital Advisors, working on behalf of British International Investment (BII) and Sweden’s Swedfund.
The Numbers in Full
The five markets covered — Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal — carry a total SME financing gap of $261 billion, according to the study. Businesses that fall under BII’s classification of “Black-owned and -led” (the study uses the acronym BOLD) account for roughly 80 percent of that shortfall, a gap approximately four times larger than the one faced by non-BOLD firms operating in the same markets.
| Market | BOLD Financing Gap |
|---|---|
| Nigeria | $131 billion |
| South Africa | $45 billion |
| Kenya | $23 billion |
| Senegal | $5.7 billion |
| Côte d’Ivoire | $4.6 billion |
| Total (5 markets) | $209 billion |
The research goes further: extrapolating to all of sub-Saharan Africa, the study estimates the BOLD financing gap at $1.842 trillion. That figure is a projection, not a direct measurement, and should be read as an order-of-magnitude indicator rather than a hard count.
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The Representation Paradox
What makes the numbers particularly pointed is the disconnect they reveal between presence and power. Across all five markets, businesses founded and led by African entrepreneurs account for between 89 and 99 percent of small firms. Yet that dominance does not translate up the size ladder. Among large businesses, their share falls to 40 percent in Kenya, 42 percent in Côte d’Ivoire, and 35 percent in South Africa.
In other words, the overwhelming majority of local entrepreneurial activity is happening at the small-business level — in sectors such as food systems, retail and trading, services, light manufacturing, and agriculture — but something consistently prevents those businesses from scaling into large, capital-absorbing enterprises. The study points to four broad barriers: investment readiness (informality, governance, financial reporting standards), access to appropriately structured finance, talent, and networks.
The Missing Middle — and a Very Specific Void
Development finance practitioners have long discussed the “missing middle” — businesses too large for grants and microfinance, too small or risky for institutional equity. This study defines that void with unusual precision: ticket sizes of $100,000 to $1 million fall into a structural gap, too large for most grant programmes and too small to attract the transaction costs that come with institutional investment.
That range will resonate with anyone who has watched a viable Nigerian agro-processor or a Kenyan logistics firm stall at exactly the point where it needs growth capital. For diaspora investors and high-net-worth individuals considering direct deals, it also suggests where patient, smaller-ticket capital could have an outsized impact — provided the governance and reporting infrastructure is there to absorb it.
Francophone Africa: A Market Within a Market
The study’s treatment of Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire is worth reading separately. Both markets are characterised by a less mature investment ecosystem than their anglophone counterparts, a cultural and linguistic distance between local founders and international investors, and a concentration of available capital on a handful of English-speaking markets. The report also notes a shortage of locally based investment teams operating in the francophone zone.
BII has responded to this finding institutionally: the organisation recently appointed Sylvia Monthe — previously at Proparco, with two decades of banking and financial services experience — as Coverage Director for West and Central francophone Africa. Whether that appointment translates into meaningful capital deployment, rather than deal sourcing for anglophone-led investment committees, is a question the study itself cannot answer.
What BII and Swedfund Are Signalling
The research sits inside BII’s BOLD initiative (“Black Ownership and Leadership for Development”), launched in 2022 with the stated aim of increasing capital flows toward businesses founded and led by Black African entrepreneurs across sub-Saharan Africa. The study is partly a diagnostic, partly a mandate-setting exercise for BII’s own next strategic period (2026–2031), under which the institution says it plans to deploy up to £9 billion and mobilise an additional £6–7.5 billion in private capital, with at least 25 percent of new core investments directed toward least-developed countries.
Swedfund, the Swedish development finance institution, co-commissioned the work, signalling that the framing of the problem — and presumably some share of the capital response — will extend beyond a single institution’s portfolio.
The methodology combined quantitative analysis with consultations involving more than 70 stakeholders — businesses, investors and ecosystem actors — across the five markets. That breadth is a strength; the limitation is that five markets, however large, cannot fully represent the diversity of a continent with 54 economies.
What to Watch
The $209 billion figure will circulate widely, and rightly so. But three questions remain open. First, how much of the gap is addressable by commercial capital versus requiring concessional or blended finance — and at what subsidy level? Second, will BII and Swedfund publish investable frameworks that actually move capital in the $100,000–$1 million range, or will the study remain a diagnostic document? Third, the extrapolated $1.842 trillion figure for all of sub-Saharan Africa needs independent validation before it drives policy decisions. Investors and policymakers in Nairobi, Lagos, Johannesburg and Abidjan will be watching to see whether the diagnostic turns into deployment.
Source: British International Investment (BII) and Swedfund / Open Capital Advisors, 13 October 2026.
