Investment Officer at Mercy Corps

Essential Responsibilities
PIPELINE ANALYSIS & DUE DILIGENCE (80%)

• The Investment Officer will support the investment team in progressing investments through the entire investment cycle, from initial screening to due diligence and closing. This includes:
• Landscaping & Pipeline Analysis: Support the mapping of investment opportunities in specific priority sector(s) for Mercy Corps Ventures. 
• Screening: Support on screening investment opportunities through review of pitch decks, participation in live demo days, meeting entrepreneurs, pouring through data rooms, and management of our inbound deal flow.
• Due Diligence: Support the investment team to conduct detailed data room analysis and interviews with relevant industry experts and partner investors to review and analyze business plans, validate assumptions, stress-test financial forecasts, gain an in-depth knowledge of a company’s unit economics, and address key due diligence inquiries and investment risks.
• Investment Research: Conduct and present research as needed in areas such as analysis of market opportunities, threats, competitive differentiation, and potential headwinds to emergent sectors or markets, as necessary to support investment decisions.
• Investment Documentation: Attend all investment team meetings and investment committees and support investment professionals to lead deals through our investment process, including drafting investment memoranda, identifying and explaining key investment risks, coordinating legal and financial DD, structuring and negotiating transaction agreements, and presenting investment opportunities to senior decision-makers.
• Investment Recommendation: The opportunity to support the investment team in making recommendations on and presenting investment opportunities to the Ventures Team, Investment Committee, and Board for debate and approval.
• Deal Structuring and Execution: Assist in the preparation of investment documentation and other transaction documents, as applicable, and support the coordinated onboarding of closed investments into Mercy Corps Venture’s investment portfolio with applicable handoffs to the Platform Team.

RESEARCH & INSIGHTS (10%)

• Content Generation: Support the investment team and work with Mercy Corps Venture’s Communications team to develop curated content through insight pieces to be shared externally.

PIPELINE & PARTNERSHIP DEVELOPMENT (10%)

• Work with the investment team to grow and foster new relationships with strategic partners such as incubators, accelerators, peer investors, and other ecosystem actors in target geographies and sectors.

Accountability

• Reports Directly To: Director, Investments, Mercy Corps Ventures
• Works Directly With: Investment team members, entrepreneurs, co-investors, and ecosystem partners, with exposure to the broader Mercy Corps Ventures team

Accountability to Participants and Stakeholders

• Mercy Corps team members are expected to support all efforts toward accountability, specifically to our program participants, community partners, other stakeholders, and to international standards guiding international relief and development work. We are committed to actively engaging communities as equal partners in the design, monitoring and evaluation of our field projects. 

Minimum Qualifications & Transferable Skills

• 3-5 years of business experience with a background in corporate finance, investment banking, management consulting, startup operations, or venture building.
• Financial Analysis Ability: A Foundational grasp of finance and financial modeling - comfortable navigating and summarizing complex financial models in excel. 
• Fluency in fundamental financial terms, understanding of financial statements, and ability to evaluate a company’s financial performance and dissect a financial model with minimal oversight and guidance.
• Comfort assessing valuation methodologies and running valuation scenarios, stress testing model assumptions and running scenario analysis would be ideal.
• You should possess an insatiable curiosity (and ideally some experience) in problem sets and solutions within fintech, web3, agtech, and/or climate-tech as well as a strong interest in venture capital in Africa. Knowledge of fundamental business concepts and a foundational grasp of the venture capital model is a plus.
• Some connections with investors, angels, accelerators, and startups in Africa are a plus but not required. You should be interested in supporting MCV in building our network of partners over time.
• Fluent in written and spoken English (French is a plus)