FMO — Nederlandse Financierings-Maatschappij voor Ontwikkelingslanden N.V. — is the Dutch entrepreneurial development bank, founded in 1970 as a public-private partnership between the Dutch state, banks and trade unions. The Dutch state holds 51%, Dutch banks including ABN Amro, ING and Rabobank hold 42%, and trade unions and employers' associations hold the rest. Its mandate is to back ambitious entrepreneurs in developing and emerging markets where private capital alone will not go — supporting jobs and income generation in the places where that makes the biggest difference, and taking on risk that commercial financiers avoid.
With a committed portfolio of roughly €16 billion spanning more than 85 countries, FMO is one of the largest bilateral development finance institutions in the world. Its core sectors are energy, financial institutions, and agribusiness, food and forestry, and it deploys debt, equity, guarantees and technical assistance — often acting as an anchor that lowers the threshold for other investors to follow.
For startups, the relevant doorway is the FMO Ventures Program, a €200 million programme with a four-year investment period. Half goes into direct investments in fintech, energy access and agritech startups at Series A/B stage, always alongside a local, regional or international lead investor; the other half backs venture capital funds at Series A/B/C stage with co-investment rights. The programme's geographic focus is Africa, the European Neighbourhood (about 60%) and Asia (about 40%), with a parallel Technical Assistance Facility that helps investees strengthen ESG, sustainability and inclusive-business capacity.
India is core to the thesis. S&P has noted India among FMO's three largest country exposures, and recent deal flow is brisk: FMO's third investment in MSME lender UGRO Capital in under three years — ₹380 crore in NCDs in 2026, after ₹250 crore (2023) and ₹260 crore (2025); a ₹85 crore round led by FMO into digital MSME lender NeoGrowth alongside LeapFrog Investments; a $35 million round led by FMO into dairy-tech company Ace International with ResponsAbility and Incofin; and a ₹90 crore equity round led by FMO into green-energy NBFC Ecofy, promoted by Eversource Capital.
FMO is led by CEO Michael Jongeneel, who joined from Bain & Company in September 2021. As a state-linked DFI with an investment-grade profile, FMO offers founders something venture capital cannot: patient, mission-aligned capital that is explicitly designed to absorb emerging-market risk — and a co-investor whose presence can unlock additional institutional money behind it.
Why it matters for founders
If you are building in fintech, energy access or agritech — or lending to the MSMEs and smallholders those sectors serve — FMO is not just another cheque. It is a development bank that leads rounds, follows on, and brings a technical-assistance toolkit built for emerging-market scale. India is already one of its top three exposures, and its repeat bets on lenders like UGRO Capital show it rewards execution with deepening conviction. Come with measurable impact and a credible lead investor, and FMO can be the patient anchor your cap table has been missing.