The office of Antler in East Africa has closed a $13.5 million fund to invest in early-stage tech companies.
The round was oversubscribed and ended up with an extra 3.5 million dollars, which includes a well-knownTesla backer, family offices, and institutional investors.
In August, Antler East Africa was launched. Each year it runs a full venture building model.
The firm has made 14 investments and five of them have passed through the programs. A few of them include Marketforce, Try Cooked, and Vybe.
Antler, founded two years earlier by Magnus Grimeland, is a venture builder and VC firm.
More than 250 companies have had their checks cut from the firm's $300 million fund.
Antler East Africa's new fund allows it to embrace a similar approach, accepting founders who want to build their startup from scratch and investing in already formed teams that need capital to scale.
We still do the venture building. That is still the core of what we do. The firm has enough money to spend on existing businesses now that the fund is closed, according to the director.
Kebede is part of a team that includes partners and program manager.
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The company said it would accept teams on a rolling basis. For up to six months, Antler's community will be home to founders going for the venture building model to find a co-founder and launch an idea.
Two to six weeks is all it takes for Antler East Africa to work with the team. Over the next three years, it plans to make 35 new investments from pre-seed to Series A. There is an arrangement for the global Antler fund to follow up on some rounds all the way to Series C.
In the past, we only liked the first $100,000 ticket. Kebede noted that they can take in existing teams and ideas that formed outside of Antler, but they can invest just like any other VC would.
We used to do that a lot in the past three years. We can give you the first institutional ticket after Series C and D.
According to Kebede, Antler East Africa is a sector. The firm is interested in investing in startups that solve problems in climate tech, agritech and fintech. She wouldn't reveal the names of the investments the team made with this new format.
Being a female-led VC team, Antler East Africa is particular about investing more in startup founded and led by women in the region. 25% of the founders in its portfolio are women, so it will try to improve the numbers from its venture building model.
Female-run VC firms are taking up their place in a male-dominated tech space as they try to address the funding gap that has plagued the industry for years. Alitheia Capital and FirstCheck Africa are among the firms dedicated to female-founded and led teams.
There are few or no female-run VCs that are 100% female. Kebede said that they are all women.
It has been great to be able to do this, especially as a first-time fund manager. It hasn't been easy though because of the added scrutiny and concern from other people when only women run it, but it has been exciting.
How Antler East Africa is building early-stage startups with experienced professionals
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