Investment Associate
Location: Remote within ±3 hours of the EAT time zone. Preference for candidates in Africa or countries where Pula has an office (Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda).
Reports to:
President & Co-Founder
About Pula Xcelerator
The Pula Xcelerator is Pula’s internal M&A and strategic investment arm, responsible for identifying, evaluating, and accelerating high-potential businesses across Africa. We enable selected companies to scale using our distribution, data, and partnership networks.
We focus on enterprises generating at least $500K in annual revenue in agriculture, insurance, financial services, or technology. Through structured acceleration, funding pathways, and hands-on operational support, the Xcelerator helps ambitious teams turn proven solutions into continent-wide scale.
About the role
This role is for someone who thrives in a dynamic, entrepreneurial environment. You will identify and evaluate high-potential businesses, engage with founders, and help shape the systems that define the Xcelerator.
What matters most is your commercial insight and entrepreneurial experience, rather than a purely formal finance background. You will scout opportunities, perform due diligence, and recommend investments.
Key responsibilities
- Lead evaluation of prospective companies, focusing on commercial potential, scalability, and strategic fit.
- Conduct due diligence across financials, operations, and business fundamentals, emphasizing practical insights.
- Engage directly with founders and senior management to test assumptions and assess capability.
- Reconstruct financials where needed and prepare internal investment memos for decision-making.
- Build and maintain a pipeline of high-potential companies.
- Operate as a hands-on execution lead, personally driving outputs.
- Contribute to designing internal systems to track and accelerate portfolio companies.
Candidate profile
- 5–10 years’ experience with strong entrepreneurial or commercial investment background:
- Former co-founder/startup operator
- Venture capital, private equity, or corporate M&A experience
- Strategic investment or corporate development experience
- Skilled at evaluating business models, unit economics, and growth potential.
- Comfortable engaging directly with founders and management teams.
- Experienced in small, high-trust teams, taking full ownership of projects.
- Hands-on, execution-focused; not purely advisory.
- Formal finance qualifications helpful but practical experience prioritized.
Personal attributes
- Entrepreneurial and commercially curious
- Stamina to work through complex tasks
- Trustworthy and careful with sensitive information
- Comfortable with ambiguity and able to create structure
- Clear thinker, able to explain insights without jargon
What Pula will bring to the table:
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- Growth potential: At Pula, we are building the systems that enable farmers worldwide to access insurance, using technology to insure this previously uninsured worldwide. We work in over 11+ countries across Africa and Asia, and by 2025, have facilitated insurance cover to around 24 million farmers. We are a for profit, and have raised over $25 million from leading venture and institutional investors as well as developed philanthropic relationships with private foundations and bilateral donors such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and German Insure Resilience Solutions Fund that have accelerated investments in our target markets.
- Market Leader: Not only is the opportunity massive, but Pula is by far the market leader in it’s category with a total of 24M farmers insured as of 2025.
- Solid: Pula has been funded by leading venture capital investors (Omidyar Network, ACCION, MercyCorps) and global philanthropic institutions (MasterCard Foundation, CGAP/World Bank as well as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation). Pula closed an oversubscribed $20m series B funding despite the economic downturn.
- Respected: Winner of the Singapore FinTech Festival 2019, Winner of The InsureTech of the Award, Africa. Featured on TED talks, The New York Times, The Economist.
- Impact and creation: This is a high-impact role, that offers a unique opportunity to bring the company to the next level, whilst developing new strategies, approaches and ideas.
- Leadership: The founders & CEO foster a culture of transparency, respect, high performance, pragmatism, execution and personal development.
- Purpose: It is rare to find a professional opportunity that offers accelerated professional development and a life purpose. Pula is going through a second phase of accelerated growth that will naturally provide professional development, whilst contributing to the financial stability of small farmers in the emerging markets.
- Remuneration: Competitive base salary accordingly with seniority and experience, an employee share option plan (ESOP) and other attractive upside offerings.
To learn more about Pula:
TED Talk: Crop Insurance, an Idea Worth Seeding
New York Times: He Grew up on a Farm. Now, He Helps Protect Them
The Economist: The Poor, Who Most Need Insurance, Are Least Likely to Have It
