Resilient Futures Fund (RFF)

The Resilient Futures Fund (RFF) aims to promote resilience and increase opportunities for climate solutions led by, involving, or benefiting women and girls. By providing catalytic capital and targeted support, the RFF unleashes capital for those on the front lines of climate change, who are uniquely positioned to innovate and deliver lasting impact.

The fund is managed by 2X Global and supported by Amazon, Reckitt, Skoll Foundation, UPS Foundation and Visa Foundation.

Overview

The Resilient Futures Fund supports the innovators redefining the future.

Women and girls are significantly affected by the impacts of climate change, in ways ranging from serious health risks to increased labour burdens, higher risks of gender-based violence and impacts on their livelihoods.

Across the world, women are bringing deep knowledge of their communities and unique skills to design and implement solutions which deliver social, economic, and environmental benefits. Women are pioneering resilient agriculture, driving access to clean energy and strengthening climate-resilient livelihoods.

Women are also leading on-the-ground responses to climate and environmental challenges, driving innovation in areas such as sustainable agriculture, access to clean energy, and resilient livelihoods.

Yet too often, these innovations remain undercapitalised. RFF is here to close that gap. By providing catalytic capital and ecosystem support, RFF accelerates solutions that can generate new opportunities, drive economic growth and foster healthier environments and stronger communities.

RFF is managed by 2X Global and supported by Amazon, Reckitt, the Skoll Foundation, the UPS Foundation, and the Visa Foundation

RFF Partners

Grantees

  • Jenni Chamberlain, CEO and Co-founder

    Established in 2006, Altree Capital is an investment firm committed to closing the funding gap for women-led and women-benefiting businesses with a climate-smart focus. Altree's investment strategy not only aims to deliver strong financial returns but ensures significant social impact, particularly in advancing gender equality, climate resilience and women’s health; these three pillars are directly interlinked.

    With the RFF grant, the Altree Kadzi Gender Climate Fund is strengthening its pipeline of women-led or benefiting climate enterprises and developing climate-smart toolkits focused on carbon markets and assisting portfolio companies enhance their climate reporting.

https://cleantechnologyhub.com/

  • Ifeoma Malo, CEO and Co-founder

    The Clean Technology Hub is an accelerator with a network of more than 60 women-led startups working on clean energy and sustainability solutions in Africa, including a company that designs solar dryers for rural farmers, making it more affordable for farmers to dry and process their harvested vegetables while also reducing the use of fossil fuel-powered driers.

    With the RFF grant, Clean Technology Hub has been able to provide seed funding to women-led businesses working on climate initiatives benefiting women and children.

  • Carey Bohjanen, Founder

    The Rallying Cry connects African women climate entrepreneurs to private sector capital. With the RFF grant funding, The Rallying Cry is supporting women climate entrepreneurs to build founder resilience and well-being, prepare them for investment, seek to connect them to fit-for-purpose capital and amplify their voices in global climate forums. Additionally, “Activator Program” cohort participants will be able to report enhanced capacity to deliver improved health outcomes or indirect health co-benefits along with gender and climate outcomes by the end of the program.

  • Carolyne Kirabo, Founder and CEO

    M-Kyala Ventures has helped hundreds of women entrepreneurs across Africa get access to mentoring and networking and has driven more than $500,000 to women-owned businesses in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Rwanda.

    The firm has a strong track record supporting women in climate smart enterprises including in agroecology, circular waste management, renewable energy a recent example being the support of a gender agroecology accelerator in Uganda and a renewable energy women’s program in Tanzania.

    With the RFF grant, M-Kyala Ventures is investing in women-led companies working on projects related to solar water pumps, reforestation, plastic recycling, agroecology, and organic fertiliser.

  • Hema Vallabh and Naadiya Moosajee, Co-founders

    WomHub is an accelerator that has supported more than 2000 female STEM business founders with funding, financial readiness skills, and leadership support. The accelerator also leads girls’ STEM education efforts across 30 countries. WomHub recently supported the Solar Power Café, which provides fully automated solar backup power for small businesses, as well as a women-led startup that provides HVAC analysis and design that reduces energy consumption.

    With the RFF grant funding, WomHub has been growing its virtual accelerator program that provides female founders with a dedicated coach, as well as enable them to make additional grants to new startups.

  • Lelemba Phiri and Lisa G. Thomas, Co-founders

    ATG Samata is a women-led fund manager focused on key markets in sub-Saharan Africa with an emphasis on Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Mozambique and Zambia.

    Their fund is a gender-lens venture fund targeting early stage, scalable businesses in emerging markets. Their approach focuses on investing in outstanding female-led and gender-diverse teams that are operating in high growth industry segments with significant female presence within the value chain.

    With the RFF grant, made additional investments as they worked towards their planned first close.

  • Alexa Bain, Managing Partner and Magali Lamyin, Managing Director

    Deetken was awarded the grant for the Ilu Women’s Empowerment Fund (Ilu Fund), a  women-led fund jointly launched with Pro Mujer. The Ilu Fund is the first investment fund dedicated to advancing gender equality and empowering women across Latin America and the Caribbean. It fuels initiatives that create new opportunities for underserved women, helping them thrive and drive change in their communities. 

    With the RFF grant, Deetken is unlocking millions more in private sector capital for investment in women-led or women-benefiting companies across LAC working on sustainable and resilient housing, green and inclusive finance or climate-smart agriculture. Part of the funding will also support technical assistance to build capacity for climate adaptation and gender-smart solutions.

  • Priya Thachadi, CEO and Co-founder

    Villgro Philippines is an early-stage gender smart incubator that funds, mentors and nurtures women entrepreneurs across Southeast Asia. They are dedicated to supporting impact businesses working in climate, health, and gender to help equip them to scale by offering incubation support and investment. With the RFF grant, Villgro Philippines is supporting a 24-month incubation and investment initiative that blends acceleration support and the deployment of a catalytic loss guarantee facility for women-led climate-focused businesses in the Philippines.

  • Seema Chaturvedi, Founder

    AWE (Achieving Women Equity) Funds is a women-led early growth venture equity fund investing in India-based future market leaders leveraging tech-led innovation to catalyse climate action and gender equity.

    With the RFF grant, AWE has been growing and scaling their fund, enabling their portfolio companies to achieve measurable climate and gender impact, and strengthening the local ecosystem of vibrant climate and gender smart companies. They have been doing this by investing in and providing technical assistance to 6 to 8 women-led and women-benefiting climate companies, strengthening the capacity of local accelerator programs through targeted support, and conducting a fellowship program for young women climate professionals.

  • Nyeji Chilembo-Mhango, Co-founder

    wCap is the only woman-owned venture capital firm in Zambia and is focused on bridging the funding gap for early stage high growth women-led businesses offering climate solutions in selected countries in Southern Africa.

    In 2022, wCap established a gender lens climate-focused funding mechanism to increase the volume of climate finance that flows into women-led businesses in the region.

    The team has been deploying the RFF grant funding as catalytic investment capital into a high-growth and high-impact business benefiting women-led businesses and addressing gender-climate vulnerabilities.

Interested
in RFF?

The Resilient Futures Fund aims to promote resilience and increase opportunities for climate solutions led by, involving, or benefiting women and girls. Stay updated on funding rounds and other developments by subscribing to the 2X Global Newsletter. If you have questions about RFF, please reach out to us by email.