How We Work

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We deploy debt, equity and guarantees to both direct and indirect (via fund managers) investments. Our typical investment size is $5 to 15 million, though we have made investments as small as $1 million and as large as $100 million. We possess significant flexibility to design creative financing instruments to meet the needs of our investees.
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Newsroom staff prepare for a video broadcast at the Rappler office in Manila, Philippines. SEDF invests in companies and funds that work with independent media companies like Rappler that provide news and information and foster debate. © Jes Aznar/NYTimes/Redux

Themes

Climate and Economic Prosperity

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We work at the intersection of climate and inclusive, equitable, and sustainable development and democracy, supporting vulnerable and excluded communities who are most at risk.

Independent Media

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Since 1995, the Soros Economic Development Fund has invested in critical media companies to foster their growth and safeguard their editorial independence.

Justice and Human Rights

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We support companies squarely focused on human rights issues, defending and advancing human rights and justice in places where they are most under threat.

Broader SEDF Portfolio

Economic and Financial Inclusion

SEDF has a decades-long commitment to supporting economic and financial inclusion as pillars of open society. Early work in this area included a ten-year commitment to a nonprofit association in South Africa—and one of the first post-Apartheid public-private partnerships—which created affordable housing for over one million people. We also helped launch an Indian company that provides patient capital to SMEs which in turn generate jobs, improve livelihoods, and deliver essential goods and services (food, healthcare, education, financial services) to low-income people. More recently, our SME financing has included investments in a fund supporting manufacturing, agro-processing, education, and healthcare in Ethiopia, and a platform supporting local fund managers in sub-Saharan Africa. 

Gender Equity

SEDF’s gender lens investments in Africa, Asia, and Latin America include female-focused financial services companies; gender-lens funds investing in women-owned,-led or-serving companies; and investments in the care economy where women are disproportionately employed. 

Health Equity

SEDF has a recent track record in health, particularly in response to the COVID-19 pandemic to improve Global South access to vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics, and to strengthen local biomanufacturing and R&D capabilities—which in turn have saved lives and improved health outcomes and systems. These investments have ranged from a significant financial guarantee to distribute vaccines to the world’s lowest-income countries, to a life sciences company focused on affordable biologics and biomanufacturing in Africa, to a Kenyan medical oxygen company. SEDF has also been involved in efforts to equitably distribute naloxone (opioid overdose reversal medication) in the United States.