Online Reporter
Nelson Gahadza-Senior Business Reporter
The Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Corporation have signed a Memorandum of Understanding in a bid to widen access to capital for startups and small-to-medium enterprises through the Zimbabwe Entrepreneurship Exchange.
This will deepen financial inclusion and accelerate the formalisation of emerging businesses.
The agreement also seeks to bridge longstanding financing gaps that have constrained the growth of Zimbabwe’s SME sector, which contributes significantly to economic activity and employment but continues to struggle to access affordable and sustainable funding.
Under the partnership, ZSE and SMEDCO will leverage their respective strengths to create a structured pathway that enables promising businesses to become investment-ready and access funding through Zimbabwe’s capital markets.
The collaboration will focus on enterprise formalisation, governance development, compliance support and the creation of innovative financing instruments tailored to the needs of businesses that may not yet qualify for traditional market participation.
The initiative will be implemented through ZEEX, a recently approved digital capital markets platform designed to provide startups and SMEs with alternative fundraising channels.
ZSE Holdings group chief executive officer Mr Justin Bgoni said the partnership represented more than a conventional financing arrangement, describing it as a strategic intervention aimed at transforming the economy.
“SMEDCO brings something that no purely commercial partner can replicate, a development mandate that is fundamentally aligned with the inclusive vision of ZEEX.
“This partnership is about more than capital markets; it is about economic transformation. By combining SMEDCO’s reach into Zimbabwe’s grassroots enterprise sector with the regulatory framework and infrastructure of ZSE, we are constructing a genuine on-ramp for businesses that have long been locked out of formal financing,” he said.
He added that properly supported formalisation remained one of the most powerful drivers of sustainable economic growth.
SMEDCO chief executive officer Mr Obert Ngwenya said limited access to finance was one of the biggest obstacles facing startups and SMEs in Zimbabwe.
“This partnership with the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange marks an important step towards creating sustainable financing pathways for emerging enterprises that have the potential to drive economic growth, innovation and job creation,” Mr Ngwenya said.
“Through ZEEX, we are not only expanding access to capital, but also supporting businesses to formalise, strengthen their governance structures and become investment-ready.”
He said the combination of SMEDCO’s development finance expertise and extensive SME network with the ZSE’s capital market infrastructure would help build a stronger entrepreneurial ecosystem.
The MoU comes as authorities increasingly push for the formalisation of Zimbabwe’s largely informal economy, with policymakers viewing SMEs as a critical engine for economic transformation, job creation and industrial development.
SMEDCO, a state-owned development finance institution, has a mandate to promote micro, small and medium enterprises through financial and non-financial services, including capacity building, training and workspace infrastructure.
ZEEX, meanwhile, is expected to become a key pillar in broadening participation in Zimbabwe’s capital markets.
Approved earlier this year, the digital platform is designed to facilitate primary market fundraising, asset tokenisation and secondary market trading within a single regulated ecosystem.
Unlike the traditional stock exchange, ZEEX specifically targets smaller businesses and alternative investment instruments that often struggle to meet the stringent requirements of conventional listings.
The platform is also expected to support invoice discounting instruments and tokenised assets, offering businesses a lower-cost and more accessible route to raising capital while expanding opportunities for investors.
Market observers say the success of ZEEX will largely depend on the ability of institutions such as ZSE and SMEDCO to build a pipeline of investment-ready enterprises and improve corporate governance standards among SMEs.
