ImpactAlpha, March 19 — Africa was not spared from last year’s venture capital funding slowdown. But nearly all of the limited partners in Partech Africa’s first fund reinvested in its second fund; “some more than doubled their commitment,” said Partech’s Cyrul Collon.
Collon also called out a new set of strategic investors from the US, the Middle East and Africa, some of whom are making their first investments in African tech.”
Investors in Partech’s second fund include the $350 million Africa partnership between French public investment bank Bpifrance and Mubadala Investment Company, a United Arab Emirates sovereign investor. Both Bpifrance and Mubadala were early allocators of Partech’s 2019 Africa fund, which closed at €125 million.
Fintech and e-commerce
The second Partech pan-African fund, which secured €280 million ($304.5 million), “will address the continent’s growing technological challenges,” said Isabelle Bebear of Bpifrance, including education, mobility, healthcare, digitalization, energy and financial inclusion.
The fund will write checks of $1 million to $15 million in African tech companies from seed to Series C rounds. Partech Africa’s portfolio includes Nigerian e-commerce startup TradeDepot, the women-led fintech Pivo and Ugandan social lender Tugende.
