Request for Proposal: Terms of Reference for an Investment Facilitation Consultant to Support Portfolio Investees Across Sub-Saharan Africa

The Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund 

The AECF, LLC (Africa Enterprise Challenge Fund) is a leading non-profit development organization supporting innovative agribusiness and renewable energy enterprises to reduce rural poverty, promote climate-resilient communities, and create jobs. We catalyze the private sector by surfacing and commercializing new ideas, business models, and technologies designed to increase agricultural productivity, improve farmer incomes, expand clean energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance resilience to the effects of climate change. We finance high-risk businesses that struggle to access commercial funding; we are committed to working in frontier markets, fragile contexts, and high-risk economies where few mainstream financing institutions dare to go. To date, we have supported over 510 businesses in 26 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, impacted more than 30 million lives, and created over 27,000 direct jobs.

We surface and commercialize new ideas, business models, and technologies designed to increase agricultural productivity, improve farmer incomes, expand clean energy access, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and enhance resilience to the effects of climate change while also addressing the crosscutting themes of women, youth, and fragility. AECF is committed to working in frontier markets, fragile contexts, and high-risk economies where few mainstream financing institutions dare to go.

REACT Sub-Saharan Africa

REACT Sub-Saharan Africa (REACT SSA) is a Swedish International Development Authority (SIDA) funded programme that provides financing and technical assistance to innovative renewable energy businesses/ business ideas across Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). The programme commenced in November 2017 and will run for five years in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Somalia, together with a regional component to support technical assistance, advocacy and learning activities.

REACT SSA is expected to catalyze the private sector by supporting transformative business models to accelerate access to low-cost, clean energy, i.e., cleaner fuels, cookstoves, alternatives to grid power, including stand-alone solar home systems, solar lanterns for lighting and charging mobile phones, and decentralized mini and microgrids.

The programme supports activities demonstrating how new knowledge in renewable energy technologies can be implemented to benefit the poor, especially women. It will also provide an evidence base to address policy challenges concerning renewable energy uptake in participating countries. These include inadequate legal, regulatory and institutional frameworks; lack of funds to expand rural electrification programmes; pricing distortions that are disadvantageous to renewables; high upfront capital costs and financial institution reticence to clean energy lending and limited relevant skills and expertise.

About the assignment  

The AECF is seeking the services of a consultant(s) to support 8 AECF investees: Kenya (1), Burkina Faso (2), Liberia (1), Mali (2), and Zimbabwe (2), in raising follow-on funding from commercial capital providers and fast-tracking their growth.

Scope of work 

The consultant will be expected to deliver on the following scope of the assignment.

1. Identify and understand the capital needs of each investee.
2. Research preferred funding options, pursue the appropriate type of funding for the investee companies, and make the database available for AECF.
3. Support the selected companies in raising the agreed target capital. The support will include but will not be limited to:
   • Development and/or refinement of investor marketing material. The investor marketing material will include, but not be limited to, an investment teaser, pitch deck, and data room. The data room shall include any documents relevant to commercial, legal, and technical due diligence, such as articles and memoranda of association, tax, legal, and regulatory compliance documents, detailed business plans, operational policy documents, historical financial statements, and financial models.
     • To avoid doubt, the detailed business plan should include but not be limited to the investees’ value proposition, market positioning, value chains, long-term strategy, product description, revenue and cost structures, and unit economics.
   • Development and/or refinement of financials and valuation models
   • Identification and introduction of suitable investors to the investees
   • Application for capital from suitable investors
   • Development and/or review of term sheets, investment agreements, and negotiations with investors culminate in thedeal’ss closing, signaled by executed funding agreements.
   • Developing a detailed investment facilitation work plan outlining implementation timelines for each intervention conducted by the Consultant.
4. Prepare monthly reports on the progress of the assignment. The narrative of the report should include, but not be limited to, a list of the selected active investees in the cohort, the target type and amount of capital to be raised for each investee, the fundraising status of each investee, and any other relevant information about the cohort relating to the capital raise, a list of all investors identified and those matched and introduced to both the company and AECF and any challenges faced and proposed remedial action.
5. Bi-monthly update meetings with the Investments team to provide an update on the assignment.
6. At the end of any capital raise (successful or unsuccessful) for an investee in the cohort, the Consultant is expected to prepare a report highlighting the process, lessons, insights, and improvement suggestions to assist the company in subsequent capital raises and AECF to increase its efficiency in the delivery of similar assignments.
7. Each report will include an updated database of profiled investors aligned to the needs of the cohcohort’svestees.
8. Train and deliver coaching sessions to the investee’s team members on fundraising, what to expect, and how to close deals.
9. Prepare an end-of-assignment report that will include the following:
   • Summary of the investment facilitation activities engaged by the Consultant during the tenor of this assignment.
   • Recommendations on any further interventions that may be needed by the investees and fall outside the scope of this assignment.
   • Lessons and insights to further inform AECAECF’svestment Facilitation service delivery to investee companies.

Deliverables and payment criteria 

The key deliverables for the consultant will include:

Payment criteria:

The payment breakdown below will be milestone-based, against the Assignment deliverables, and will be made upon satisfactory signoff by AECF.

Duration of service

The assignment will be conducted over nine (9) months and is expected to commence in October 2024.

Reporting

The Consultant will report to the Senior Advisory Specialist at the AECF.

Eligible experience 

The minimum competencies and qualifications for the project team (including CVs) should include:

• Demonstrable experience working with SMEs in Sub-Saharan Africa and successfully raising commercial capital, especially for companies in the renewable energy sector
• Demonstrable experience in raising Pre-Seed, Seed, Series A funding (in the form of subsidized loans, grants, and zero-interest loans, junior debt, senior debt, convertible notes, mezzanine debt, quasi-debt/equity, equity) for early-stage and growth companies, in the renewable energy sector, with a capital need of US$ 100,000 to US$ 3 million.
• Demonstrated network and access to a wide range of funding sources/investors that would align with the needs of the portfolio.
• Experience working with SMEs in fragile economies will be an added advantage.
• Experience working in the focus countries will be an added advantage.

Evaluation criteria 

The AECF will form an evaluation committee. The same standards of confidentiality will bind all members. The consultant should ensure they fully respond to all criteria to be comprehensively evaluated.

The AECF may request and receive clarification from any consultant when evaluating a proposal. The evaluation committee may invite some or all the consultants to appear before it to clarify their proposals. In such an event, the committee may consider such clarifications when evaluating the proposals.

In deciding the final selection of a qualified bidder, the technical proposal will be given a weighting of 70% based on the evaluation criteria. Only the financial proposal of those bidders who qualify technically will be opened. The financial proposal will be allocated a weighting of 30%, and the proposals will be ranked according to the total points scored.

The mandatory and desirable criteria against which proposals will be evaluated are identified in the table below.

Proposal submission
The qualified consultant/Firm is invited to submit a Proposal that includes the following:

• Approach and methodology to undertake this assignment by demonstrating value for money and successfully closing deals.
• A detailed financial budget (in US$).
• Track record in executing similar projects to the assignment. The consultant may include its employees’’ cumulative experience where relevant.

The key focus regions for the assignment include four francophone companies (located in Mali and Burkina Faso) and four anglophone companies (one in Kenya, two in Zimbabwe, and one in Liberia). The Consultant may apply for a cohort based on the type of capital and country or a combination of the two aligned to their capacity and capability. The Consultant must specify the countries for which they are applying.

Technical and Financial proposals must be submitted as separate documents. Financial proposals will not be opened until the technical evaluation’s conclusion and will only be for those deemed qualified and responsive proposals.

Pricing
The AECF is obliged by the Kenyan tax authorities to withhold taxes on service contract fees and ensure VAT is charged where applicable. Applicants are advised to ensure that they clearly understand their tax position regarding provisions of Kenyan tax legislation when developing their proposals.

Application details
The AECF is an Equal Opportunity Employer. The AECF considers all interested candidates based on merit without regard to race, sex, colour, national origin, religion, age, marital status, disability or any other characteristic protected by applicable law.

• Interested training firms and individuals must submit their technical and financial proposals to aecfprocurement@aecfafrica.org by 5:00 PM EAT on 2nd October 2024.
• The email’s subject line should read “RFP FOR INVESTMENT FACILITATION CONSULTANT TO SUPPORT PORTFOLIO INVESTEES ACROSS SUB-SAHARAN AFRIC“’. The AECF is not liable for not opening proposals submitted with a different subject line.
• Please send your questions to aecfprocurement@aecfafrica.org by 25th September 2024.

Disclaimer
AECF reserves the right to determine the structure of the process, the number of short-listed participants, the right to withdraw from the proposal process, the right to change this timetable at any time without notice, and the right to withdraw this tender at any time, without prior notice and without liability to compensate and/or reimburse any party.

The AECF does not charge an application fee for participation in the tender process and has not appointed agents or intermediaries to facilitate applications. Applicants are advised to contact the AECF directly.