Miles Morland and Runa Alam founded Development Partners International (DPI) in 2007, with a vision to build a leading pan-African investment firm serving global institutional investors interested in getting commercial returns in Africa. They wanted to back high-growth businesses to allow the people behind them to achieve their ambitions – all the while striving to leave a positive development impact. Miles and Runa realised that to achieve this, their focus would have to be on building an outstanding team, a strong positive value system and culture, and excellent processes and institutionalisation, along with developing the right investment strategy.
We have raised – and advise – top-quartile* commercial funds with a combined US$2 billion in funds under management. We focus on companies with the potential to evolve into market leaders. We work closely with them to implement the highest Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) standards, and deliver impact.
After more than 14 years of successfully executing our strategy across the continent, we are at the forefront of investment in Africa. Today, the combined experience of the DPI team in investing in private equity in Africa is more than 150 years.