Focus
Essential Sectors in Growth MarketsSonanz is a fund manager with a thematic focus on sectors that are
essential for the future of society: financial services, renewable energy, sustainable food & agriculture and affordable healthcare.
We invest in businesses that adopt new technologies
to cater to the specific demands in Growth Markets.
The need for essential products is massive among emerging consumers but remains
largely underserved. Companies that meet this demand will generate competitive returns
to investors as well as value for society.
Local businesses are ideally positioned to supply customers with the right services.
In our view, the best way to reach and support these companies is to invest with the best
investment teams on the ground. Sonanz has developed relationships with a large number of
specialised fund managers that are beyond the reach of most investors today.
Great importance is placed on environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards to
avoid exploitation of people and planet. At Sonanz, we are motivated by the positive impact
generated by the portfolio companies and monitor it by tracking relevant indicators.
Our first fund, a private equity fund-of-funds with a focus on early- and growth-stage
companies in Asia, Africa and Latin America, was launched in 2017.
Team
- Private equity: After many years of successful private equity investing, we know its strength and weaknesses. The private equity model is ideally suited to support small and medium-sized companies in Growth Markets.
- Growth Markets: 80% of the world’s population earn less than $10/day and there is an enormous unmet demand for essential services for low-income people. Our hands-on experience from investing in both advanced and emerging markets has taught us the skills necessary for long-term success.
- Academic research: We have pioneered the academic research in social finance, which addresses the financing issues of organizations addressing societal challenges.
Andreas Nilsson
Founder & Managing Director
Mr. Nilsson founded Sonanz in 2015. He has more than twenty years of experience from the private equity industry and has led many successful investments for EQT and UBS. His investment experience ranges from frontier and emerging markets to advanced economies and includes early-stage investments as well as leveraged buyouts. He has also acted as advisor to the first private equity firm in Bangladesh.
Andreas Nilsson
Founder & Managing Director
Mr. Nilsson earned a PhD in finance from the Stockholm School of Economics and spent two years as a Visiting Fellow at Harvard Business School. The topic of his doctoral dissertation was “The Financing of Nonprofits and Social Enterprises”. He holds a MSc from the Stockholm School of Economics.
Nina Freudenberg
Director
Ms. Freudenberg has been with Sonanz since the inception in 2015. She started her career in 2011 as a management consultant for The Boston Consulting Group. During her time at BCG, she focused on the healthcare sector. Prior to Sonanz, she spent time in Bangladesh, where she led consulting projects for portfolio companies of Brummer and Partners, a private equity firm in Bangladesh. Ms. Freudenberg holds a MSc in international health policy and economics from the London School of Economics and a BSc in European Public Health from the Maastricht University.
Sven Söderblom
Venture Partner
Mr. Söderblom joined Sonanz in 2019 having been a Senior Advisor to Sonanz since the inception in 2015. He has close to 20 years experience from PE and VC fund investing, of which 15 years specialising on Growth Markets in senior positions at CDC in London and Arcano Capital in Madrid. His experience is a combination of conventional commercial investing as well as development finance and impact investing in a range of stages, sectors and market segments throughout Growth Markets.
Advisory Board
Our Advisory Board consists of exceptional persons providing us with hands-on support. All members are leading experts in their respective fields and share a strong interest in helping Sonanz reach its goals.
Malin Lindfors-Speace
Ethos International
Founder of Ethos International, a Swedish-based consultancy firm providing services to large corporations on human rights, labor rights, environmental and anti-corruption issues
Malin Lindfors-Speace
Founder of the street newspaper Situation Stockholm as well as similar newspapers in Russia, Ukraine and South Africa
John Nevado
Nevado Roses
Founder of the Farmers For Good network, which aims at sharing and promoting fairer and better industrial farming practices in developing countries
John Nevado
President of Nevado Roses, a producer of organic and Fair Trade roses in Ecuador
Elected Young Global Leader at Davos World Economic Forum
Khalid Quadir
Brummer & Partners Bangladesh
Co-founder and Managing Partner of Brummer & Partners Asset Management (Bangladesh) Limited, which manages Frontier Fund, the first private equity fund in Bangladesh
Khalid Quadir
Co-founder of Gonofone, a founding partner of GrameenPhone, the largest mobile phone operator in Bangladesh
Founder of bracNet, a Bangladesh wireless broadband operator which was later acquired by KDDI of Japan
Arisla dos Santos
Private equity fund investor
Global private equity fund investing for one of Europe’s largest asset management firms
7 years at von Braun & Schreiber Private Equity Partners, a German private equity fund-of-funds manager
Arisla dos Santos
5 years at Banco Itáu (the largest private bank in Brazil) focusing on the selection of Brazilian hedge funds and the management of the bank’s private funds-of-funds
Per Strömberg
Stockholm School of Economics
Centennial Professor of Finance and Private Equity at the Stockholm School of Economics and Director of the Swedish House of Finance
Per Strömberg
Member of the prize committee for the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel (the “Nobel Prize in Economics”)
Portfolio
Sonanz Impact I is invested in the following underlying portfolio companies via a fund of funds structure.
Press
29-08-2018
Moving past microfinance: How India’s Small Finance Banks aim to take financial inclusion to the next level
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