This paper draws on DGGF’s and its partners’ portfolio of SME fund investments across Latin America, Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to explore what conditions are necessary to mobilise local capital for SME finance vehicles in practice. The picture is not uniform: local capital mobilisation varies from country to country, and is shaped by the maturity of capital markets, regulatory frameworks, and the appetite of domestic investors. But across these differences, patterns emerge in how fund managers structure their approach to local investors, in the conditions that enable or constrain mobilisation, and in what it takes to move from intent to commitment.