Balloon Ventures

For March, introducing Hill View College in Bulangira, Kibuku District. Founded in 2007 by Mr. Kagino Fred using his personal savings, Hill View College has flourished, now serving nearly 1,400 students. However, Fred's vision extended beyond traditional education. Recognizing the challenges students face in accessing secondary or higher education—which often leads to unemployment—he took a pivotal step by acquiring a nearby under-managed vocational institute. Balloon proudly supported Fred with the necessary funding to purchase and renovate this institute, in addition to providing ongoing marketing and management support. This initiative has transformed the institute, now offering six courses to 64 students and creating 14 new jobs. Fred's ambition to empower youth with practical skills and quality education aims to generate thousands of job opportunities in the community, and we are excited to be part of this journey. Education is a cornerstone of our investment portfolio making up 20% of investments. Uganda has one of the world's fastest-growing populations and a critical shortage of educational facilities. Our investments currently support schools and colleges with 39,000 pupils, with a goal to expand our reach to 100,000 pupils—1% of all Ugandan pupils—within the next 24 months 🎒

At Balloon we work with all portfolio companies we invest in to implement systems to track their revenue and growth. We ask that they then share this data with us, and in return we offer them bigger loans with less collateral requirement. A fair deal I think! I was looking at our live impact dashboard today and this stood out. 💵 The combined annual turnover of SMEs in our portfolio is over $154 million 🇺🇬 Apparently, this means our portfolio in Eastern Uganda is 6% of regional GDP! 🏣 And each year our investments help these SMEs add $35 million of revenue growth Pretty cool 😎