The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange Limited and Lloyd Corporate Capital have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) aimed at channelling growth capital and blended finance into the country’s SME sector through the Zimbabwe Entrepreneurship Exchange, ZEEX.
Announced in Harare in July 2026, the partnership brings together ZSE’s regulated capital market infrastructure and Lloyd Corporate Capital’s expertise in structuring and deploying private sector financing. The goal is to create a clear pathway for high-growth startups and SMEs to access funding and eventually participate in the formal market, with an initial focus on businesses in Bulawayo, Matabeleland and surrounding areas.
Under the MOU, the two institutions will collaborate across five key areas. The first is pipeline development, where Lloyd Corporate Capital will identify, screen and prioritise well-governed, growth-oriented startups and SMEs that it already supports or finances. This will be followed by co-financing and blended finance activities, with both parties exploring co-investment models that combine institutional funding with private capital for enterprises progressing toward a ZEEX listing.
Capacity building forms the third pillar. ZSE and Lloyd Corporate Capital will run joint training programs covering corporate governance, financial reporting standards, investor readiness and listing requirements. They will also drive market development through awareness campaigns, co-hosted investor forums, roadshows and SME financing conferences designed to showcase investment-ready companies to a wider audience.
The final workstream focuses on product innovation. The partners will explore growth-focused instruments such as SME bond programs, growth capital and private placement structures, green and sustainability-linked instruments, as well as structured SME funds.
Group CEO of ZSE Holdings Limited, Mr. Justin Bgoni, said Lloyd Corporate Capital brings a commercially viable capability to structure financing solutions that match what a growth business needs at each stage of its journey. “ZEEX is built to serve businesses that are ready to step into the formal capital market, and Lloyd Corporate Capital’s involvement means that more of those businesses will arrive at that threshold genuinely prepared, adequately capitalised, and structurally sound,” he said.
Mr. Bekithemba L. Nkomo, Chairman of Lloyd Corporate Capital, said the firm has spent over a decade working with businesses across Southern Africa to prepare them for their next stage of funding. “Partnering with ZSE gives the enterprises we support a clear, regulated pathway from private capital into the formal market, and gives ZEEX a pipeline of businesses that have already been through the discipline of proper structuring, governance and advisory support,” he noted.
With the signing, ZSE continues to build out an ecosystem of capital market enablers around ZEEX. The platform itself is a newly approved digital capital-market venue designed to accelerate economic formalisation and deepen financial inclusion. ZEEX enables primary-market fundraising, asset tokenisation and secondary-market trading in one integrated space. By bringing SMEs, invoice-discounting instruments and tokens into a regulated and transparent ecosystem, it aims to boost compliance, broaden the investor base, and provide a lower-cost channel for local companies to raise capital.
Lloyd Corporate Capital provides human, equity and debt capital, as well as training and advisory services, to medium-sized businesses across Southern Africa. It structures and manages private equity and venture capital transactions, including growth capital, expansions, acquisitions and refinancing, and operates from offices in Bulawayo, Harare and Johannesburg.
