Rinchi
TechInAfrica – Seedstars announced its partnership with First Growth Ventures on April 4th, 2019, to launch a pan-African venture fund called Seedstars Africa Ventures. The Sub-Saharan Africa fun specializes in financially supporting early-stage innovative startups across sectors in the region, targeting around $100 million investments. The first investment is expected to be done by the end of 2019.
Seedstars is a preeminent startup community for emerging markets in more than 80 ecosystems. It focuses on supporting startups through its programs, equipping them with skills and they need to grow their businesses.
The fund is being developed on strong foundations and active in more than 20 Sub-Saharan Africa markets. Furthermore, it actively supports startups through hubs in the key African markets such as Ivory Coast, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tanzania.
First Growth Ventures mainly supports tech startups and high-growth enterprises in Africa, Europe, and MENA.
The economic growth in Africa has opened opportunities for numerous investments. Multiple funding initiatives become increasingly available to financially support high-growth startups on the continent.
Charlie Graham Brown, Chief Investment Officer at Seedstarts, said: “Seedstars has been working for 6 years to close the entrepreneurial ecosystem gap in emerging markets through various startup focused initiatives. Since 2017 we’ve been actively investing at a seed stage and although venture capital investment volumes in Africa grew to over a $1bn in 2018, Europe, a similarly sized region, had volumes near $20bn. This fund will help reduce this VC funding gap and in turn contribute to reducing the GDP gap.”
Entrepreneurs will get support in portfolio and institutional fund management, helping them to strive for growth. Even more, they will also have an opportunity to network locally and internationally, as well as get support through training programs and infrastructure.
“The challenge of providing quality early-stage support across the continent is one of the main reasons explaining the lack of early-stage funding at this scale. Partnering with Seedstars who has a demonstrated ability to assist companies where they need it most will help us bridge that gap,” Tamim El Zein, partner at First Growth Ventures, commented.
While most venture funds usually focus more on the future African unicorn, the Seedstars Africa Ventures also focus on searching for post-commercialization, scalable, and high-growth companies.
Maxime Bouan, another partner at First Growth Ventures, said: “We strive to identify the best entrepreneurs irrespective of their sectors and countries and evaluate their business based on their capacity to grow and dominate their markets. Overconcentration of investors on a few verticals and countries is leaving large untapped opportunities.”
For further information about Seedstars, its initiatives, and activities, please visit https://www.seedstars.com.
For further information about First Growth Ventures initiative, please visit https://www.firstgrowthventures.com.
