African startups desirous of pitching the newly launched VC firm, Pacer Ventures, may have to go through Founder Institute. This is because Founder Institute (FI), the world’s largest pre-seed startup accelerator has annouced Pacer Ventures as ‘Investor in Residence’ for the Founder Institute’s African Accelerator program. As part of the program, all startups that graduate the Founder Institute in Africa will be reviewed by Pacer Ventures for potential investment in their seed or pre-seed round of funding.
“FI is quickly becoming the gold standard for pre-seed acceleration in Africa,” says Ryan Micheletti, Head of Global Operations for the Founder Institute. “We are excited to strengthen our leadership position by partnering with Pacer Ventures to foster investment in FI Alumni all across the Continent.”
Here Is What You Need To Know
- This development follows the announcement of Founder Institute as a strategic partner of Pacer Ventures for African early-stage startups that are solving some of the most critical problems on the continent.
Managing Partner of Pacer Ventures, Gbemi Akande, sees value in formalizing the partnership with the Silicon Valley based program.
“Our partnership is in line with what Pacer VC was set up to accomplish,” he said. “By partnering with Founder Institute, we at Pacer VC will accelerate our mission of supporting early stage companies. It is a win-win and we look forward to a mutually beneficial collaboration with FI.”
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- Pacer Ventures says it continue to leverage its strategic partnership with Founder Institute chapters throughout Africa to identify and recommend winning teams with scalable solutions that meet market needs.
- FI has an Alumni strength of 100+ companies tackling various challenges across the continent and this is bound to grow with FI’s expanded footprint in Africa and Pacer’s move to increase access to early-stage funding.
- Pacer Ventures was one of a handful of new funds selected to pitch to a global gathering of limited partners from around the world at the VC Lab Venture Forum, which has also led to increased interest from LPs around the world.
“Africa faces many challenges, but within every challenge lies opportunity and young people are leveraging technology to solve these problems across the Continent. It is our duty to inspire and fund the entrepreneurs who are building valuable solutions to our most pressing problems. Africa is the future, and investors and LPs are now becoming aware of this,” says General Partner at Pacer Ventures and FI Regional Director, Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer