Egypt: Aman, Bokra and Erada Join Egypt Venture Debt Programme

AMAN Holding, Bokra and Erada Finance have signed framework agreements with enpact to join Scale It Forward, a pilot programme developed with GIZ Egypt to expand venture debt financing for Egyptian scaleups. The initiative will work with five financial institutions and a pipeline of 30 growth-stage companies, with each participating lender expected to pick six businesses for a pilot that pairs at least €5,000 in venture debt with €5,000 in non-repayable support per selected company.

"Scale It Forward is implemented by GIZ Egypt and enpact under Germany's Invest for Jobs initiative," the programme statement says, signalling a coordinated effort to test venture debt as an alternative source of growth capital in Egypt.

The agreements position AMAN Holding, Bokra and Erada Finance to design and test venture debt products while accessing curated dealflow of revenue-generating startups that have moved beyond the earliest stages. The pilot is explicitly aimed at companies that generate revenue but may not qualify for traditional bank lending because of collateral requirements or short operating histories.

Programme mechanics and support

• Scale It Forward plans to partner with 5 financial institutions and 30 scaleups; each institution will select 6 companies for the pilot.
• Selected businesses will receive a minimum of €5,000 in venture debt from a participating financial institution, matched by €5,000 in non-repayable support through the programme.
• Participating companies will also receive training on financial planning, governance, cash-flow management and preparation for debt financing to improve repayment readiness and lender assessment.
• Target sectors for the pilot include fintech, agritech, healthtech, e-commerce, climate technology and digital services.

The initiative is deliberately small in initial ticket size: the main objective is market building rather than immediately financing large expansion rounds. The pilot structure pairs partial grant support with lender participation, reducing downside risk while enabling banks and non-bank financiers to test product design, underwriting models and recovery performance on technology-driven businesses that often lack physical collateral.

Egyptian startups raised about $614 million across different financing instruments in 2025, with equity remaining a common source of capital for technology companies. That dependence on equity can force founders to dilute ownership every time they need capital; venture debt aims to give founders another option when companies have sufficient revenue and cash-flow visibility to service loans.

Outlook

If AMAN Holding, Bokra and Erada Finance — alongside the two other planned institutional partners — can demonstrate that lending to scaleups is sustainable and recoverable at acceptable rates, the programme could expand ticket sizes and encourage more lenders to adopt venture debt products. Success would broaden financing choices for Egyptian founders, complementing equity and traditional bank lending.

Scale It Forward will therefore be watched as a test case: a small initial pilot intended to validate whether venture debt can scale within Egypt's startup ecosystem and become a regular financing instrument alongside equity, bank loans and other mechanisms.