Constant Ventures, a subsidiary of Constant Group, is launching a $100 million venture capital fund to invest in a variety of technology startups with a focus on financial inclusion, education, and healthcare.
Investee companies will initially be situated in Nigeria and Ghana, with the fund aiming to expand throughout the rest of West Africa.
Recent advancements in digital information technology offer an opportunity to both build and scale solutions to everyday challenges faced by millions of Africans, specifically 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.
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The Constant Ventures fund has a unique structure that allows it to invest directly in talented entrepreneurs and compelling startups across West Africa, or through its proprietary venture studio, which acts as a catalyst to bring together best-in-class entrepreneurs, ideas, and capital to rapidly build winning startups.
Constant Ventures established the fund as a result of its outstanding track record as an angel investor and acclaimed technology firm developer. To date, it has invested US$3.2 million in nine Nigerian firms, with a 5.6x return that is expected to increase to 15x following the next funding round.
Ike Echeruo, chairman of the Constant Group and co-founder and managing partner of Constant Ventures, says: “We are very excited to be announcing this fund. It has been a decade in the making, the result of deep-dive research and due diligence in anticipation of this moment when we knew that advances in information technology would enable start-ups across West Africa to commercially address real societal needs.
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“Technology was always going to provide the answer to so many of the critical issues faced by millions of people across Africa today. We are now on the cusp of a paradigm shift with recent advances across information technology presenting a unique investment window. We have looked at what has worked in other geographies. Now, refined and optimised for Africa, we have modelled a fund to invest in businesses that will both improve the lives of millions of people and deliver outstanding returns for investors.”
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer, who has several years of experience working in Africa’s burgeoning tech startup industry. He has closed multi-million dollar deals bordering on venture capital, private equity, intellectual property (trademark, patent or design, etc.), mergers and acquisitions, in countries such as in the Delaware, New York, UK, Singapore, British Virgin Islands, South Africa, Nigeria etc. He’s also a corporate governance and cross-border data privacy and tax expert.
As an award-winning writer and researcher, he is passionate about telling the African startup story, and is one of the continent’s pioneers in this regard. You can book a session and speak with him using the link: https://insightsbyexperts.com/view_expert/charles-rapulu-udoh