Impact Stories

Co-founders Keren and Paloma had been given a vision to build a successful ethical apparel manufacturing company that would not only pay good wages, but really care about employees. Their capital raise was enabling growth to create more sustainable jobs but COVID had impacted their ability to raise and opportunities were passing them by. Keren had the EAA prayer support group praying for God’s timing on raising the capital they needed to grow Ethical Apparel Africa as timing was getting very tight with nearly 40% of the raise still needed and especially as Paloma was gifted with a newborn on the way.

A friend who had worked with global investment networks got in touch, heard the story, and introduced her to us at FDI and we set up an initial interview.

Enter Marketplace.

We were not only impressed with Keren and Paloma’s vision but also with their experience in the textile and design industries and how they had ran factories for major global companies. It just seemed like a great opportunity. 

Soon after the FDI team wanted to put an emphasis on female founders and took the opportunity to bring Ethical Apparel Africa to pitch on demo day along with 3 other incredible entrepreneurs.  

At first the response was slow, the virtual meeting room stayed empty for a few minutes, and hope of funding through FDI was fading.

But God who is always faithful, intervened and one investor entered the room.  They began to talk about their stories and how God had worked across their life journey. This developed a personal connection as their life path's and experience of West Africa had been very similar.  This personal connection led to a deep dive into the company over the next several days and led to things suddenly happening fast. Not only did the investor put his own money into the deal, but advised a family office that he represented to do the same, and within 7 days of being on demo day, the round was fully committed and 80% of the money had even been wired. 

God’s timing was perfect and now the team is running faithfully to grow the business and impact tens of thousands of lives.