Investment Associate Principal

Edge Growth; Cape Town; On-site; ZAR 1,200,000 - 1,800,000; Full time

Job summary

Edge Growth is seeking Investment Associate Principals to lead and support the SME investment process, spanning origination, evaluation, structuring and exits. You will work with a fund focused on debt, mezzanine, and equity investments across growth‑stage SMEs in South Africa.

Responsibilities include building deal networks, coordinating multi‑workstream due diligences, and mentoring junior team members. Strong quantitative background and senior stakeholder engagement are essential.

Qualifications

• Graduate degree with quantitative emphasis or equivalent.
• MBA, CA(SA), CAIA or CFA would be advantageous.

Responsibilities

• Deal origination: build a network of deal sources and pipeline.
• Deal evaluation: manage screening process and support investment theses.
• Project management: operate within a structured, project‑driven workflow.
• Investment process improvement: drive initiatives to enhance deal efficiency.
• Deal execution: lead due diligences, financial modelling and term sheet drafting.
• Closing: negotiate and finalize legal agreements and hand over to relevant teams.
• Teambuilding: coach and mentor junior Investment Associates and Analysts.

Skills

Financial modelling

Valuation

Stakeholder engagement

Leadership

Project management

Education

Graduate degree

MBA

CA(SA)

CAIA

CFA

Job description

Cape Town, South Africa | Posted on 07/08/2026

Are you passionate about making a living from making living in South Africa better for everyone? Then join our team of SME Development Solutionists and help us to pioneer a new, more inclusive business landscape in South Africa while creating shared value through purpose-led partnerships.

Job Description

Investment Associate Principals (IAPs) lead or support every stage of the SME investment process. This particular opportunity sits within one of our SME development funds, which invests across a range of ticket sizes and instruments.

Investment focus areas include:

• Debt and mezz/hybrid structures in financial-services supply chains;
• VC-stage and growth-stage equity investments in innovation-led and impact-aligned businesses.

Significant activities include originating and screening transactions, evaluating investment opportunities, managing due diligence, structuring and negotiating equity, debt, and mezzanine transactions, and supporting post-investment management to work with portfolio companies to drive value creation and value-accretive exits – with some senior support.

Highly successful IAPs execute fundamental investment analysis, apply sound business judgment, engage credibly with senior stakeholders (e.g., IC members and investors/LPs), and manage complex, fast-moving processes. They are self-starters, feel a strong sense of ownership of their work and have excellent team, leadership and interpersonal skills.

Key Responsibilities

Deal Origination

• Build and maintain a network of deal sources within investor/LP's supply chains and the SME ecosystem that regularly introduce high-quality, mandate-aligned opportunities into the fund’s pipeline.

Deal Evaluation

• Manage a pipeline of potential investments at different stages of the screening process and support team members in managing their pipelines.
• Direct team members in crafting high level investment thesis and, together with financial evaluation and investment structuring, motivate transactions to the rest of the deal team. Build strong relationships with founders of early-stage companies.

Project Management

• Executing all of the above within a strongly project managed work process is essential.

Investment Process Improvement

• Embrace the ethos of continual improvement in identifying and driving initiatives to enhance or re‑engineer existing processes to increase efficiency in the deal‑making process.

Deal Execution

• Plan and execute commercial and financial due diligences with multiple workstreams.
• Undertake focused research and analysis as part of the due diligence process to understand the growth potential of a small business.
• Analyse historical financials and conduct financial modelling and valuation to structure equity, debt or combined instruments.
• Review team outputs and prepare high quality investment reports.
• Build strong rapport with the Investment Committee and successfully present investment opportunities to them.

Closing

• Drafting, negotiation and execution of legal agreements ensuring they accurately reflect the approved term sheet.
• Effective transaction hand‑over process and on‑going collaboration with PIM and GS (Growth Support) teams.
• Governance and record keeping leveraging team member support.

Teambuilding

• Develop Investment Associates and Analysts through coaching, mentoring and training on technical topics.

Requirements

Qualifications

• At least a graduate degree, preferably with a technical and/or quantitative emphasis (finance, engineering, accounting, law, etc.).
• An MBA, CA(SA), CAIA or CFA degree would be advantageous.

Experience

• 5+ years across the full deal lifecycle, spanning equity and debt investing in SMEs (origination through to exit, recovery or write‑off), or in Tier 1 corporate finance / business consulting with balanced strategy and operations exposure.
• Other experience, especially within impact VC / PE, development finance or development finance will add significant weight to the application.