Egypt Becomes Finance in Motion’s Second-Largest Regional Market With $1.5 Billion Portfolio
Egypt has grown into Finance in Motion’s second-largest market in the region, with the company’s portfolio in the country now exceeding $1.5 billion, according to Mohamed Morsi, Head of Egypt and Yemen at Finance in Motion.
Speaking during the “Ecosystem Pioneers” session at the SDR 2026 Egyptian Entrepreneurship Sector Annual Report Summit in El Gouna, Morsi said the company’s attempts to enter Egypt began between 2011 and 2014, at a time when several of the financing tools it wanted to introduce were still unfamiliar to the local market.
Finance in Motion entered Egypt with a mandate that extended beyond conventional lending, targeting project finance, equity and mezzanine financing across small and medium-sized enterprises, financial inclusion, affordable housing, energy and agriculture.
The first deal took three years
Morsi said completing the company’s first transaction in Egypt took around three years, illustrating how different the market was when Finance in Motion first began exploring opportunities in the country.
At the time, concepts such as sustainable finance, environmental, social and governance standards, and structured financing for SMEs were still relatively new.
That meant the challenge was not simply finding capital or identifying companies that needed financing.
Investors also had to work with businesses and institutions to develop the governance, reporting and risk-management frameworks required by more sophisticated forms of institutional capital.
A local team changed the investment equation
Morsi said establishing a local team in Egypt proved central to the company’s expansion, giving Finance in Motion a deeper understanding of businesses, sectors and the way investment decisions are made locally.
The result was not only a significant increase in the amount of capital deployed, but also a change in the quality of the companies receiving it.
Working directly with local institutions helped improve governance, disclosure, risk management and sustainability practices, according to Morsi, gradually making a wider range of Egyptian businesses capable of working with international institutional investors.
That evolution helped turn Egypt from a difficult market entry into one of Finance in Motion’s most important regional operations.
Investment is no longer only about capital
The company’s experience in Egypt also reflects a broader change in the role of development and impact investors.
Capital remains essential, but investors are increasingly expected to contribute to the institutional development of the companies and financial institutions they back.
For Finance in Motion, that has meant combining financing with work around governance, risk management, transparency and environmental and social standards.
This approach becomes particularly important in areas such as SME finance, affordable housing and agriculture, where expanding access to capital often depends on strengthening the institutions that distribute that capital.
Egypt’s rise to become Finance in Motion’s second-largest regional market therefore tells a wider story about how the country’s investment landscape has changed.
A market that initially required three years to complete a first transaction now supports a portfolio exceeding $1.5 billion — suggesting that the biggest transformation has not simply been in the amount of money available, but in the market’s ability to absorb increasingly sophisticated forms of investment.