Our history

We were established as the Colonial Development Corporation by the Overseas Resources Development Act, 1948 with the mission to ‘do good without losing money’.

One of our early investments was to establish Zambia’s first cement works: Chilanga Cement. It provided most of the cement used to build the Kariba Dam.

In Bechuanaland (Botswana) we started the Molopo Ranch, which became one of the largest cattle ranches in southern Africa.

We helped establish Kenya’s tea industry through our investment in the Kenya Tea Development Authority.

A loan to Merpati Airlines in Indonesia was our first investment outside the Commonwealth. We founded the Mananga Agricultural Management Centre in Swaziland to run residential courses that would help turn local agricultural managers into general managers.

We made our first investments in India and Pakistan. In the late 90s, we became an early backer of India’s tech industry.

We establishment the Ghana Venture Capital Fund, the first CDC-sponsored fund to attract third-party investors.

We invested in Celtel, an African mobile phone company, at an early stage when commercial investors considered the African market unimportant.

We were reconfigured to operate mainly as a fund investor. We had a pioneering role in establishing the private equity industry in emerging markets. By the end of 2007, we were working with 42 fund managers across 100 funds.

Our mandate was broadened so that we could again invest directly.

We established MedAccess, a social finance company, to accelerate access to life-changing medical supplies in Africa and South Asia.

To improve access to clean, reliable power and green jobs across South Asia, we set up Ayana Renewable Power. In 2022 the platform reached 1 gigawatt (GW) of renewable energy operational capacity in India which is enough to supply millions of consumers.

We backed Liquid Telecom to improve internet access across Africa, including helping to connect Cape Town to Cairo by fibre network for the first time.

We were renamed as British International Investment. The new name signifies the increased breadth of what the organisation does and highlights our role as part of the UK's offer to help developing and emerging countries meet their significant financing needs for infrastructure and enterprise.