Fatoumata B, a veteran of the African tech space, announced that her firm was raising a 60 million fund. The firm received 15 million from the European Investment Bank as an anchor investor and intended to close the fund the following year.
The first close of the fund was noteworthy, as it received 10 million from other anchor investors. 34 million in total capital commitments were dropped by other limited partners.
The firm said that it plans to invest in startups that enable Africans to improve their access to essential goods and services and African small and medium businesses to improve their access to market and capital.
More than half of Africa's self-employed population are women and they contribute more to the economy than men. Last year, women-only founders received less than 1% of the nearly $5 billion raised by African startups.
One of the few female-founded, owned and led venture capital and private equity firms that sees a clear investment opportunity in addressing Africa's gender funding gap is Janngo Capital. FirstCheck Africa and Alitheia Capital are two funds with similar plays.
Female-founded and female-led teams aren't the only teams the firm invests in. Even though it plans to invest up to 50% of our new fund in startups founded, co-founded, or benefiting women, it pursues a gender- equal approach. She says that being a female-founded, female-owned and female-led fund manager means that gender equality is both a moral case and a business case.
The fund's thesis can be seen in some of the companies it backs. Sabi, a growth-stage B2B e- commerce platform with a female CEO, is one of the 11 startups Janngo Capital has invested in. Expensya and Jexport are online freight marketplaces that have male founders.
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The fund is designed to back 25 companies over the course of its life. She said that the higher our ownership is, the more we'll follow on. Angel funding is reinvested into late-stage VC/ PE. It offers between 50,000 and 150,000 for the pre-seed stage and between 150,000 and 1.5 million for the post-Series A stage. Growth stage startups can get up to 5 million from the firm.
Like most funds of this size, Janngo Capital is sector neutral. It pays particular attention to innovation in sectors such as healthcare, logistics, fintech, retail, food and agriculture, and mobility. Similar-sized pan-African firms that have reached the first close of their funds in recent months include Launch Africa and Oui Capital.
It is not a market standard to announce final close dates, so we are not planning to go public about it.
Oui Capital, a pan-African early-stage VC firm, hits first close of its $30M second fund
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