Female focused Dazzle Angels close to making first investment

Dazzle Angels, SA’s first angel fund focused entirely on women-owned technology businesses, is edging closer to announcing its first deal.

Alexandra Fraser (pictured above), one of four founding members of the fund and founder of Fraser Consulting, told Ventureburn today that the Johannesburg-based fund’s has reviewed about 30 funding applications from women entrepreneurs since it announced its formation in August last year, and is in conversations with “quite a few” startups to offer them funding.

She could not reveal what percentage of the applications were from black entrepreneurs, saying the fund did not keep figures on this, but added that the applications were from “a very diverse group” of women from “across South Africa”.

Dazzle Angels has reviewed about 30 applications from women entrepreneurs

Dazzle Angels’ three other founders are JAG Method co-founder Adi Zuk, JAG Group COO Lee Zuk, and Charlotte Luzuka. There are 12 angels — all women — in the network at present.

She did not want to disclose how much capital the angel network has raised so far, adding that it is an “ongoing fund”.

When pressed on whether it was over R100-million, she said it was “definitely not”, as the fund is only an angel investment vehicle.

In August last year Fraser told Ventureburn that the fund was still in the “early stages” of setting up but would likely be launched by the end of 2018 (see this story).

Commenting today, Fraser attributed the delay in launching to it having taken longer than expected to put the necessary fund structures in place. In addition, the founding members currently only work on the fund part time.

She said the angel network is also in talks with the state’s Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) to access matching funding to help fund women entrepreneurs with product and technical development assistance.

Fraser said Dazzle Angels will consider funding any technology-enabled business with women founders or co-founders. Women must have equity in the business and be actively involved in the company.

Read more: It’s confirmed – SA’s first female focused angel fund to launch this year
Read more: Venture capitalist questions why so few women involved in angel investing in SA

Featured image: Dazzle Angels co-founder Alexandra Fraser (Twitter)