I think I'll use this as an opportunity to reaffirm some of the things I was recommending in my initial remarks because at least two of the three of them are based on best practices. I think that in view of the target population that Canada is aiming to have an impact on, namely the poorest and most vulnerable, that thinking about the availability of loan guarantees as a way to de-risk access to capital and investment for women entrepreneurs is a widely regarded strategy and approach to helping to make our DFI successful and truly catalytic in pursuing its mission and mandate.
I think it's important that Canada also leverage the expertise that has been hard-earned by other DFIs, and also then choose to apply itself in ways that address some of the institutional gaps that are currently left. In view of that, that's part of the reason we're also encouraging that a smaller segment of the portfolio go toward a higher-risk type of SME investment. We know that the opportunity for building markets that address the needs of people who are left out of the system today is a harder task and one that requires more patience. A lot of DFIs have not taken on the hard challenge of doing that, and Canada can distinguish itself among the group internationally by attempting that.
I want to give a very specific example of how that translates and what that looks like. There is an entrepreneur in southern Africa whom I know very well who runs a business called Zoona. It is now southern Africa's largest mobile money provider. They transact over a billion dollars a year through mobile-based lending that essentially makes capital available to people who don't have bank accounts, or access to finance. This is a significantly impactful business model.
The IFC, as a multilateral development institution, has led a series B investment round of $15 million into Zoona. This is the kind of business that a DFI should be looking toward making an investment in, not only because it's now at a point where it's scaling operations across large regions and having a very strong impact and performing strongly from a commercial perspective, but the ability to provide employment opportunities and access to goods and services that are otherwise not available to the poorest people is built into the design of the business.
Zoona didn't jump to the point where it could then access $15 million in investment from a DFI. It needed seven or eight years of higher-risk investment from a range of other institutional partners, and that's part of why I underscore that recommendation around 15% toward higher-risk investment. You can't expect these businesses, against the odds and all the constraints they face in operating in environments that are higher risk by nature, to simply jump to that point of being operationally and commercially viable. To me, that example provides both a prospect for how a Canadian DFI could invest in a later-stage business and also how they could choose to put in risk capital at the earlier stages as well.