Insure & Match Capital (IM Capital) launched a relief initiative under the name of “From my heart, support to Beirut” to help small and medium Lebanese enterprises, as well as families affected by the Beirut explosion.
Insure and Match Capital (IM Capital), established within the framework of the Middle East and North Africa, provides matching capital, equity guarantee, and support programs to a broad range of qualified early-stage businesses and investors in Lebanon.
The company is being funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Through this initiative, IM Capital will direct the financing that amounts to nearly two billion Lebanese pounds (about $1,315,876) to companies across four sectors: education, housing, food, and water security.
In return, these companies will offer their products and services to their affected customers and beneficiaries. This initiative is part of the $1.3 billion in development assistance that the US government has provided to the Lebanese people since 2006.
Eileen Devitt, USAID Mission Director in Lebanon, emphasized the importance of the initiative and its impact on affected companies and communities.
“We continue to stand with the Lebanese people through this new initiative, which aims to create a chain of social supplies by helping more than 8,000 affected families, sustaining and creating more than 200 jobs, and providing support to more than 300 small companies,” Devitt told The961.
“This initiative provides immediate support to the entrepreneurship sector and allows it to better resist the crippling crises that the Lebanese are suffering from,” said Maroun Chammas, Director of the Middle East North Africa Investment Initiative (MENA II) in Lebanon.
“This assistance will have a positive impact on small and medium enterprises as well as their owners and customers.”
This process of channeling funds to create and sustain jobs is expected to have a significant impact, allowing the Lebanese to stay in their country where their talents are needed, hence contributing to reviving the economy and reducing emigration.
“Such a model of funding can be adopted by donors and other relief organizations in order to support small and medium enterprises, as well as reviving the Lebanese economy,” said Nicolas Rouhana, General Manager of IM Capital.
