Closing the Gaps

Small and growing businesses (SGBs) are critical actors for driving inclusive growth in emerging markets. Not only are these businesses found in all sectors of the economy, but they also employ and target many underserved markets that larger businesses either cannot serve or overlook. SGBs have a diverse range of business models and a diverse range of unmet financing needs.

The Collaborative for Frontier Finance and its founding members have produced a follow up report to the “Missing Middles: Segmenting Enterprises to Better Understand Their Financial Needs” which identified four distinct families of SGBs each with diverse characteristics and external financing needs.  The new report titled: “Closing the Gaps: Finance Pathways for Serving the Missing Middles” identifies five alternative approaches or “pathways” for providing finance that meets the diverse needs of each SGB segment and investor. It also highlights critical actions that ecosystem stakeholders can take to help support these approaches as well as newly emerging ones that together can help fill the financing gaps within each SGB segment.