Tunisia-based private equity fund AfricInvest is busy raising funds to launch a €120-million fund to invest in innovative new ventures across the continent, a top official at the company has revealed.
Speaking to Ventureburn last week, AfricInvest VC director Selma Ribica said the fund would target “successful startups” from any sector, from across the continent, using AfricInvest’s various other offices across the continent, namely: Tunis, Lagos, Abidjan, Nairobi, Cairo, Algiers and Casablanca.
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“It is aimed to be first truly African fund with offices in North, East, and West Africa and we aim to raise €120-million,” said Ribica. The idea, she said is to help startup to grow into regional giants.
She added that the new fund will leverage AfricInvest’s assets and its network. The private equity investor has almost 25 years’ experience in investing on the continent and has a footprint in 26 countries on the continent.
AfricInvest aims to close its first capital raise for its planned €120-million VC fund at the end of this year
The focus of the fund would be on investing on “more successful companies”, said Ribica.
“We believe that innovation is the best way to leapfrog to new solutions to the existing African socio-economic gaps and aim to invest companies with such ambitions across industries: fintech, energy, eductech, agritech, health, logistics etc,” she said in an earlier email to Ventureburn.
AfricInvest senior manager Yassine Oussaifi added that the fund would look at existing startups and inject funding from Series-A level, rather than from seed level.
He said the aim is to close the first capital raise of €50-million at the end of this year. Oussaifi said the fund would likely be made up of contributions from between six and eight investors.
These would include corporate funders, family offices, venture capital funds and development finance institutions (including the African Development Fund, which like AfricInvest is also headquartered in Tunis).
Featured image: kschneider2991 via Pixabay
