WEST AFRICA – Constant Ventures, a subsidiary of Constant Group is raising a US$100 million venture capital fund to invest across a range of technology startups with a focus on financial inclusion, education, and healthcare across West Africa.
The Investee companies of this fundraising will be based in Nigeria and Ghana at first, as Constant Ventures aims to expand funding to the rest of West Africa later.
The purpose of the capital is to provide instruments for wealth generation and to build a financially educated area for businesses and entrepreneurs. It also aims to support African entrepreneurs and achieve gender parity in business funding.
“We are now on the cusp of a paradigm shift with recent advances across information technology presenting a unique investment window,” said Ike Echeruo, chairman of the Constant Group and co-founder and managing partner of Constant Ventures
“We have looked at what has worked in other geographies. Now, refined and optimized for Africa, we have modeled a fund to invest in businesses that will both improve the lives of millions of people and deliver outstanding returns for investors.”
Recent advances in digital information technology provide an opportunity to both build and scale solutions to everyday challenges faced by millions of Africans.
In particular, the aggregation of fragmented value chains, the formalization of large sectors of the continent’s economy, and the provision of much-needed access to financial services for both consumers and businesses.
The Constant Ventures funding has a very unique framework for determining who benefits from its investing strategy.
The firm invests mainly in exceptional entrepreneurs and intriguing start-ups. It also invests through its own venture studio, which serves as a strong community force for entrepreneurs with unique ideas and capital to quickly establish firms.
This US$100 million investment, however, is aimed specifically at fintech platforms and marketplace start-ups.
These start-ups must also be active in goods, infrastructures, and services that provide underserved individuals with access to loans, savings, and investments, as well as platforms or markets for trading information, products, or services.
In addition, the funds available to each eligible start-up hover between US$50,000 to US$15 million, with each company receiving a maximum of 15% of the fund.
Constant Ventures has created the fund on the back of its successful track record as an angel investor, as well as a respected developer of technology businesses.
So far, Capital Ventures has invested over US$3.2 million in nine Nigerian start-ups including Halo, Gokada, Appzone, Tingtel, Heala, Sabiroa, CreditClan, FIG., and Omnibiz yielding a 5.6x return and a 15x return following the next round of funding.
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