The Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), the equity impact investment arm of the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), has announced a $300m strategic investment in the Africa Minerals and Metals Processing Platform (A2MP).
The move signals a major push by the pan-African development bank to fund the continent’s shift from a mere exporter of raw materials to an integrated industrial powerhouse. The investment is designed to scale a platform that can mine, process, and add value to minerals before they leave African shores — a strategy aimed at retaining a significantly larger share of the global $12 trillion minerals and metals market.
The Integrated Value Chain Play
A2MP is not a single mine but a diversified, pan-African platform. Rooted in over a decade of mining ventures, it already operates a robust pipeline of twelve mineral assets and four processing hubs across nine countries.
The platform’s portfolio covers traditional commodities like gold, bauxite (for alumina), manganese, and iron ore. However, its strategic ambition lies in its plan to develop additional processing hubs for rare earths, battery precursors, and other critical minerals.
This positions A2MP to tap into two separate but related opportunities:
- Industrialising existing commodities: Turning African bauxite into higher-value alumina or iron ore into steel precursors locally.
- Capturing future-facing markets: Building the capacity to process minerals essential for the global energy transition, such as lithium, cobalt, and rare earths, which are often exported as low-value unprocessed ores.
The investment aims to tackle the industry’s long-standing challenge: the depletion of high-grade, easily accessible ore reserves, which makes integrated processing models more financially viable and strategically necessary.
The Billion-Dollar Backer
For Afreximbank and its equity arm FEDA, this investment is about more than just financial returns; it’s a core part of its mandate to structurally transform Africa’s economy.
FEDA, which has invested over $1.3bn to date, operates with a clear focus on building industrial capacity and boosting intra-African trade.
“Our investment in A2MP embodies the type of transformative investment that aligns perfectly with our vision,” said Marlene Ngoyi, CEO of FEDA. She noted the platform’s model is “built on retaining beneficiation and processing within the continent, ensuring that the real economic value of Africa’s mineral wealth is captured locally.”
This mission is echoed by Afreximbank’s new President, Dr. George Elombi, who framed the investment as helping the continent transition “structurally from raw-material exports to a fully integrated system.” The goal, he stated, is to create “competitive industrial clusters and high-value jobs.”
The Gagan Gupta Connection
A notable, and crucial, detail is the man behind A2MP: founder Gagan Gupta.
This name will be familiar to FEDA watchers. Gupta is also the founder of Spiro, the electric motorcycle and battery-swapping company that recently secured a $75m commitment from FEDA to scale its operations across Africa.
This $300m investment in A2MP reveals a deeper pattern: Afreximbank isn’t just making isolated bets; it appears to be backing a specific entrepreneur’s ambitious, large-scale vision for African industrialisation.
Where Spiro aims to build a new energy distribution network for mobility, A2MP aims to build the industrial backbone for Africa’s natural resources. Both ventures are highly capital-intensive, complex, and operate across multiple countries.
“This strategic investment allows us to scale our fully integrated model of responsible extraction, processing, and transformation,” said Gupta. “Our ambition is to make A2MP the backbone of the continent’s next industrial revolution.”
The Scale Question
While $300m provides significant firepower, A2MP faces formidable challenges in executing its continent-spanning vision.
- Capital Intensity: Building mineral processing plants — like alumina refineries or battery precursor facilities — is enormously expensive. The $300m is a significant start, but scaling all 12 assets and multiple new hubs will require billions, not millions, in follow-on capital.
- Execution Risk: Operating across nine different countries involves navigating a complex web of regulations, logistics, political risks, and infrastructure gaps.
- Geopolitical Competition: The “critical minerals” and “rare earths” space is dominated by established global players. Building a new, competitive processing industry from scratch will require not just capital but also technology, long-term offtake agreements, and a highly skilled workforce.
- Energy: Mineral processing is incredibly energy-intensive. A2MP’s success will be directly tied to securing stable, affordable, and preferably green energy sources to power its planned hubs.
FEDA’s investment is a clear statement of intent. It’s a high-stakes bet that with enough capital and a focused platform, Africa can finally break its “resource curse” and capture the value it has long exported.