LeapFrog Financial Inclusion Fund

LeapFrog is a $135 million profit-with-purpose fund focused on financial inclusion. The fund invests in companies serving the ‘next billion’ consumers in Asia and Africa with essential financial tools – with a distinctive focus on insurance.

LeapFrog targets both attractive financial returns and large-scale social impact from reaching this vast untapped market, the 85% of low-income people who are willing to pay for affordable services yet are offered none. Through its portfolio companies, the fund aims to reach 25m vulnerable people, 15m of them women and children, providing protection against life’s tragedies and ending cycles of poverty.

Launched with President Bill Clinton in 2008, LeapFrog has attracted several of the world’s leading banks, funds and reinsurers as investors. It is now the largest investor globally in microinsurance and related essential financial services, and its companies reach over 8m people in emerging markets.

The fund’s priority countries include India, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa and Nigeria. LeapFrog is a value-add investor, supporting portfolio companies across the value chain. Drawing on over 150+ years of combined experience as CEOs and financial services experts, LeapFrog’s team provides not only strategic support to CEOs and boards, but also deep operational knowledge to management teams in growth businesses.

Financial description

LeapFrog is a $135M investment fund, backed by investors that include Accion, Calvert, EIB, Flagstone Re, FMO, IFC, J.P. Morgan, KfW, Omidyar, Proparco, SCOR, Soros, TIAA-CREF, and Triodos. The fund invests in companies that tap an underserved market: the 2 billion people not reached by formal insurance and related financial services.
The fund invests in companies with strong management teams, poised to scale their company or ready to move down-market into the low-income space. LeapFrog's investments have included a US $15m investment into Shriram CCL, a massive distributor of insurance, savings, and investment products across India; a $14m investment, the largest in the history of microinsurance in Africa, into Kenyan insurer Apollo, an industry leader in the 120 million person East African community; and a nearly $7m investment in AllLife, the first insurer of people living with HIV, which links clients to a health management program, rendering them insurable.
LeapFrog’s investment team consists of leaders in emerging market insurance and investment, with experience in life, health, property, and other forms of insurance. LeapFrog is thus able to support strong, local management teams, and provide its partner companies with assistance in business planning, product design, distribution, and regulatory/risk management.