Founder Institute (FI), the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator, today announces Pacer Ventures as its ‘Investor in Residence’ for the Founder Institute’s African Accelerator programs.
As part of the announcement, all startups that graduate from the Founder Institute in Africa will be reviewed by Pacer Ventures for potential investment in their seed or pre-seed round of funding.
This development follows the announcement of Founder Institute as a strategic partner of Pacer Ventures for African early-stage startups that are solving some of the most critical problems on the continent.
Pacer VC’s purpose is aligned with FI’s mission to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build impactful, technology-enabled companies worldwide.
Ryan Micheletti, Head of Global Operations for the Founder Institute, says: “FI is quickly becoming the gold standard for pre-seed acceleration in Africa. We are excited to strengthen our leadership position by partnering with Pacer Ventures to foster investment in FI Alumni all across the Continent.”
FI has an Alumni strength of 100+ companies tackling various challenges across the continent, and this is bound to grow with FI’s expanded footprint in Africa and Pacer’s move to increase access to early-stage funding.
Managing Partner of Pacer Ventures, Gbemi Akande, sees a lot of value in formalizing the partnership with the Silicon Valley-based program: “Our partnership is in line with what Pacer VC was set up to accomplish.
“By partnering with Founder Institute, we at Pacer VC will accelerate our mission of supporting early-stage companies. It is a win-win, and we look forward to a mutually beneficial collaboration with FI.”
Pacer Ventures was one of a handful of new funds selected to pitch to a global gathering of limited partners from around the world at the VC Lab Venture Forum, which has also led to increased interest from LPs across the world.
Geoffrey Weli-Wosu, General Partner at Pacer Ventures, stated, “Founder Institute stands out as one of the top pre-seed accelerators across the African continent.
“Pacer Ventures is committed to supporting startups coming out of the program that can support the transformation of the continent.”
Pacer Ventures will continue to leverage its strategic partnership with Founder Institute chapters all over Africa to identify and recommend winning teams with scalable solutions that meet market needs.
Similarly, Pacer Ventures has partnered with techbuild.africa to provide marketing & promotional support for FI portfolio companies across Africa.
While speaking on the announcement, General Partner at Pacer Ventures and FI’s Regional Director, Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata stated, “There are many challenges that Africa faces, but with every new challenge, young people are leveraging technology to solve these problems.
“It is our duty to inspire and fund the entrepreneurs who are building valuable solutions to our most pressing problems. Africa is the future, and investors and LP’s are becoming aware of this trend.”
