This is an anonimized version of the update shared with our investors - Accra, March 2022 - Dear Investor, As we witness a rebound from the pandemic globally and nationally the outlook for BI looks impressive. Our metrics are falling in line with our targets and expectations. We have gotten off to a good start by signing some new investors while some existing investors have reinvested in our fund. We are optimistic that we would be successful in our fundraising and that we would be able to admit more students and expand internationally. We are positive that we will continue to see a decline in unemployment and an increase in distributions and repayment.

Brighter Investment (BI) has tested an investment-led model for higher education financing in Africa since 2015. But, beyond improving access to quality higher education, Brighter Investment considers itself a major dealer in hope. Through our education financing product and student support program, we have seen hundreds of high potential students in Africa gain access to quality higher education and increase their income by up to 5x.

The document below is a generic version of the update sent to our investors at the end of the second semester of the 2020-2021 academic year: Dear Investor, For Brighter Investment as an education financial institution, the negative impact of Covid could have been devastating. A loan model would see default rates shoot up under the current economic circumstances, our more robust income sharing model sees delayed repayments but still no defaults. In the short term, there is an impact on the financial performance of your investment with us. But due to the diversification of our portfolio of the brightest students with quality degrees, BI students are already finding jobs 66% faster than they did at the height of the pandemic. Over the last three semesters, the average amount repaid by graduated BI students is 81% higher than what it was in the three months before Covid. These signs of recovery mean that when compared to the previous semester, distributions are up by 33%.

It has been over a year since Covid disrupted business activities, studies, and our lives in general. As a result, economic growth has slowed down, many businesses struggle and there is elevated unemployment around the world. In developing countries where poorer people are disproportionally hard hit, our mission is critical for an equitable growth out of this crisis. We are more committed than ever to ensure that all bright students have access to higher education and become successful.

To expand our student investment program, aslo beyond the borders of Ghana, Brighter Investment is offering investors the opportunity to invest in our $2 mln fundraising round consiting of both debt and equity. The slides in our investment deck are presented in this article with audio comments by our team.

From a little over 40 female applicants in 2015 to well over 2000 female applicants in 2020, Brighter Investment has proven that attaining a gender-inclusive model for higher education financing in developing countries is possible. Women in developing countries are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of quality higher education and many of them are ensuring that nothing holds them back from living their dreams and attaining the highest of heights in education and career. This is an opportunity Brighter Investment leveraged in 2015 (when it supported its first cohort of students,) and continues to leverage (after six cohorts) to grow investors’ wealth and make the dreams of many young Ghanaians come true.

The unprecedented Covid-19 crisis means that our bright students may need a little more time to graduate due to prolonged school closures or take longer to find a job due to the resulting economic downturn. But one way or another, our bright students will find their way to success. Our scenario analyses presented in this post show that your investment will follow a similar trajectory: school closures and increased unemployment may delay distributions, but long term returns remain strong. This is the letter our CEO sent to all our investors last week.

Funded by a crowdfunding campaign for the first cohort, followed by Impact investors for subsequent years, we have been investing in the higher education of the brightest students since 2015. Gradually building a successful track record has convinced investors to make larger investments and has allowed us to grow our cohorts. The long term objective has always been to prove the model to institutional investors who have the capital to really scale it up. With Vancity as our first institutional investor we’ve made a large step forward towards that goal.

“There was no money for me to go to school, things were very difficult for me since my mum lost her job. She wasn't working as a trader anymore, but with that determination that inspires me every day, I told myself I have to get a way out.” - Watch this video about Jacinta Ayambire Awinemina, Brighter student.

The unprecedented Covid-19 crisis means that our bright students may need a little more time to graduate due to prolonged school closures or take longer to find a job due to the resulting economic downturn. But one way or another, our bright students will find their way to success. Our scenario analyses presented in this post show that your investment will follow a similar trajectory: school closures and increased unemployment may delay distributions, but long term returns remain strong. This is the letter our CEO sent to all our investors last week.

Are you a successful fundraiser for a non-profit or social impact venture? And are you interested in a high responsibility/impactful role at a Vancouver based for-profit with a mission to improve the lives of millions? Let’s talk. Help us invest in the education of the most talented students in developing countries.

And it’s signed! We’re very happy to announce that Brighter Investment and the Ghanaian government have decided to work together on improving accessibility to higher education in Ghana. The Ghanaian government of President Nana Akufo-Addo has rolled out a program that makes senior high school free for all Ghanaian students. This has, over little more than two years, increased enrollment in senior high school from 308,000 students to 430,000 students and is expected to increase demand for tertiary education by 50% over the next 5 years. To pay for this increased demand, the Ghanaian government is looking for private partners like Brighter Investment.

4 years ago we started supporting the first small cohort of students in Ghana with the goal of proving that an investment model has the potential to break down financial barriers to higher education. Over the following years we supported 4 cohorts and 221 students. 221 students that instead of street vendors or subsistence farmers will become future leaders in science, engineering, medicine and business. These 221 students show that an investment model can indeed accomplish equitable access to tertiary education and create value for both students and investors.

My name is Joy Lamptey, and I am the student success manager at Brighter Investment. Growing up, I was lucky to have had a family that made me believe I could be anything I wanted to be. I wanted to be a surgeon, and later an architect. But someway somehow, someone somewhere suggested, “why not a nurse or an interior designer?”, They had no other reasons except for the fact that it would be a perfect career path for a pretty intelligent girl like me. Inexperienced as I was at the time, I believed these lines. This is just one of the many gender specific barriers women face on their path to career success. At Brighter Investment we’re solving these.

Richard Adarkwah and Joy Lamptey, the Regional Manager and the Student Success Manager for Brighter Investment in Ghana, are interviewed on AAU Talks about financing higher education in Africa. The Association of African Universities (AAU) is the official African Union body representing all higher education institutions within that Union. The full 50 minute interview can be found on the AAU Facebook page and is definitely worth a watch. But if you’re short on time, here are our 6 favorite parts.

The Brighter Investment model, an investment in a student's higher education in return for a % of their future income, naturally results in a focus on the brightest students pursuing the degree programs with the best career potential. The consequence of this focus on career potential and income, is that the majority of degrees Brighter Investment supports are programs in science, technology, engineering, medicine as well as certain business and finance degrees. Degrees in art and the humanities are examples of areas that we currently don’t support students in. Why not? And should that change?

The start of the academic year in Ghana is an exciting time for the Brighter Investment team. Students we’ve supported in prior years are returning to their campuses to continue their education, recent graduates are completing their national service and starting jobs, and, perhaps most exciting for all, new students are signing on with Brighter Investment to begin their academic journey.

In our recent blog posts we dove into how our student investment model works and we presented metrics that show that it actually works. We also answered the most frequently asked questions except for one, a very simple one: why? Why have the people on our team decided to do this? And what do we ultimately hope to achieve with Brighter Investment?

In 2015 Brighter Investment supported the first high potential students in Ghana. The deal is: we pay for their higher education, and after graduating students repay our investors a percentage of their income. After investing in a second cohort in 2016 and a third cohort in 2017, we shared a blogpost last month that describes that this model works and is an attractive investment with tremendous social impact. Following this post we received many questions from interested investors. Here are our answers.