Cambridge, MA – Today, Root Capital, a nonprofit social impact investor that partners with agricultural enterprises in Latin America, Africa and southeast Asia, is proud to announce that it crossed the $2 billion threshold for loans made, reaching 2.3 million farmers, since its founding in 1999. The milestone reflects Root Capital’s commitment to providing access to tailored, affordable financing to agricultural enterprises across the Global South to foster rural prosperity.
Over the past 25 years, Root Capital has provided financing to over 800 agricultural businesses too big for microloans but too small for commercial lenders, and has provided capacity-building training to twice as many. As these businesses succeed and scale, they become engines of impact for their local communities, raising incomes, creating jobs, uplifting women and young people, and preserving vulnerable ecosystems.
“How meaningful that we’ve reached this milestone at our 25th anniversary year,” said Root Capital Founder and CEO Willy Foote. “This achievement is a testament to the hard work of our client agricultural businesses and their farmer members, with whom we are so proud to partner. They are why we remain utterly committed to our mission of growing rural prosperity and enhancing the resilience of farming families worldwide.”
The loan that allowed Root Capital to cross the $2 billion mark was made to La Federación Comercializadora de Café Especial de Guatemala, a nonprofit organization founded in 2006 with a mission of supporting smallholder coffee producers in the international markets. The Federation brings together more than 10 producer organizations, associations, and cooperatives and has approximately 1,050 smallholder farmer members. The Federation has been a Root Capital lending client since 2020 and has participated in over 75 Root Capital advisory trainings, in the areas of business management advisory, digital business intelligence, agronomic and climate resilience and more.