Private Capital Development Publishes a Free Directory of the Development Finance Institutions That Invest in Private Funds

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Reference work maps 41 institutions — and finds the received wisdom about first-time funds contradicted by the institutions' own published figures.

ROCKVILLE, Maryland — Private Capital Development today published The Global Directory of Development Finance Institutions, a free reference work covering 33 multilateral and bilateral development finance institutions and the 8 associations that reach them. Twenty-eight of the institutions commit capital to privately managed investment funds.

The directory is released during United Nations General Assembly 2026 and will be published annually on the same occasion.

Its starting point was an absence. There is no universally agreed definition of a development finance institution — no treaty, regulator or standard-setter provides one — which is why every list in circulation disagrees with every other. The most rigorous published test, built by the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University with Agence Française de Développement, admits several hundred institutions, most of which will never invest in a private fund. The nearest thing to a directory written for fund managers has moved behind an association membership wall.

The finding: development finance institutions do back first-time funds

The fundraising conventional wisdom is that a first-time manager should not bother approaching a development finance institution. Five of the 41 institutions in this directory publish a position on first-time managers, and every one of them is an invitation.

• The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development states that 50 per cent of its fund commitments typically go to first-time fund managers, under an "open-door policy towards new relationships, whether these are fund managers with a long track record or first-time teams."
• The African Development Bank records 45 per cent of its private equity portfolio committed to first-time funds — a figure published in 2020, and stated in the directory with that date.
• The European Investment Bank states that "both novice and experienced investment teams can qualify" for its climate and infrastructure fund window.
• The European Investment Fund says it has been "investing in first-time teams, emerging markets, nascent sectors, and helping proven teams close bigger funds."
• British International Investment publicly documents backing a first-time team.

What the directory tells a manager that a list cannot

Meeting the definition of a development finance institution says nothing about whether an institution could be a limited partner in your fund. Each entry therefore answers a narrower question: what, in practice, would this institution be to you?

• Twenty-eight of the 41 institutions commit capital to funds.
• Four are not a conventional limited-partner route, and their entries say so on their face — including institutions whose mandates require a corporate nexus to their home country that most managers cannot satisfy.
• Eight are associations and networks, which invest in nothing but are the most reliable route to their members.

Where an institution publishes terms, the directory reproduces them: anchor positions capped at a quarter of a fund's capital, stated minimum ticket sizes, statutory exposure limits, exclusion screens applied across an entire bloc of institutions, and in one case a published application form with a stated deadline.

Tested and not listed

The directory carries a page naming institutions widely described as development finance institutions that are not in it, with the reason for each: Nordic Investment Bank, Council of Europe Development Bank, MIGA, OPEC Fund for International Development, Invest International. Most are lenders or guarantors that never commit capital to a fund.

Russia is excluded from the directory as a matter of firm policy — a decision about where Private Capital Development works, not a finding about any institution. The directory says so in its own pages rather than leaving the absence unexplained.

"A directory that silently omits well-known names invites the reader to assume an oversight," said Randy Mitchell, Co-Founder of Private Capital Development. "We would rather publish the page that says which institutions we tested and left out, and why. Applying the test honestly shrank this book rather than filling it — and that is the most useful thing in it. The set of development finance institutions a fund manager can actually raise from is much smaller than the set of institutions called development finance institutions."

How it was verified

Every entry was checked against the institution's own published material, and every web address tested, on the date stated.

Fields the research could not establish are left blank rather than guessed. Several entries record a negative finding — that no evidence was found of an institution committing to third-party funds — on the grounds that this is more useful to a manager than silence.

Timed to the General Assembly

The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly convenes under the theme Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations That Delivers for All.

"Restoring trust is the phrase that made us choose this week," Mitchell said. "The institutions in this directory exist to put capital where commercial markets will not go on their own. A fund manager in Nairobi or Jakarta or Bogotá should be able to find out who they are, what they invest in, and how to approach them — without paying an association for the privilege."

Private Capital Development has no affiliation with the United Nations and claims none; the timing marks the occasion. The firm is likewise independent of every organization listed in the directory. No organization was consulted on its entry, charged for inclusion, or offered placement.

Free, and open to correction

The directory is free to download and carries no paid placement. The closing pages invite the institutions themselves to correct the record — on terms, programs, mandates, or entries missing altogether — with corrections accepted unconditionally, removal available on request, and corrections carried forward into subsequent editions.

"We have certainly got things wrong in here," Mitchell said. "The honest thing is to say so on the cover, tell people how to fix it, and publish a better edition next September."

The Global Directory of Development Finance Institutions, Edition 1 is available at capitalmobilization.com.

About Private Capital Development

Private Capital Development is a capital mobilization and brand-building firm — the strategic bridge between fund managers and the institutional investors who allocate to them. Founded on thirteen years at the U.S. Department of Commerce and operating commercially as a family enterprise since June 2018, the Maryland-based firm runs a dedicated outreach program securing meetings with global allocators on a fund manager's behalf, and hosts in-person brand programs frequently held at U.S. Embassies and Ambassadors' residences. Private Capital Development does not sell securities and is not compensated on capital raised.

Media contact
Randy Mitchell, Co-Founder
Private Capital Development
rmitchell@capitalmobilization.com
capitalmobilization.com

Research and drafting were AI-assisted and reviewed before publication.

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