Seedstars, an emerging markets startup competition has announced that it would launch a $100-million fund to invest in African startups in collaboration with Paris based First Growth Ventures.

The announcement was made yesterday by Seedstars World chief investment officer Charlie Graham-Brown at the Seedstars Summit at the SwissTech Convention Centre in Lausanne, Switzerland.

“The strategy that we’re developing now and have started working on, is to have a fund per region of around $100-million to be able to do deals in Series-A and Series-B,” Seedstars World chief financial officer Charlie Graham-Brown announced yesterday.

The fund in Africa will be Seedstars first such regional fund. Graham-Brown told Ventureburn on the sidelines of the summit today that the aim is for the fund to invest in 30 to 40 companies and to begin investing by the end of this year.

Seedstars

He said Seedstars would shortly reveal more details on the fund such as the countries the fund would focus on.

Seedstars announced it would launch a $100-million fund to invest in African startups in collaboration with Paris based First Growth Ventures

Seedstars is no stranger to investing in startups in emerging economies.

Seedstars CEO and co-founder Alisée de Tonnac said that since the organization’s inception in 2013, Seedstars has invested in ticket sizes of between $50 000 and $500 000 in 40 companies so far.

Four of these startups were set up by Seedstars itself through its venture building team in Nigeria that focuses on the fintech sector and a further four were venture built by the organisation in Ivory Coast that focuses on edtech.

Two of the four Nigerian companies — Lendigo and Quickcheck — are still in operation, getting funding and doing well, said De Tonnac.

De Tonnac said the other two Nigerian companies it built — one providing loans to Uber drivers and an insurance company — have since closed down. She said Seedstars shut the loans company because the segment in Nigeria was over-traded and required heavy management of drivers. The insurance company she said didn’t follow up with the right partnerships.

In the Ivory Coast, Seedstars has also prototyped two other companies — one of which, a marketplace for tutors — didn’t work out.

De Tonnac said to ensure there’s sufficient talent for the startups it builds in Nigeria, Seedstars runs an academy programme to train potential employees who can be placed in its portfolio companies.

 

Musa Suleiman
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