Investment Associate

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:

• • 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