A new player has entered the African venture capital market as a result of a side fund established by the French angel group Kara Ventures with the goal of helping African entrepreneurs reach higher heights.
The sidefund’s founders, Réna Kakon and Jérémy Goillot, were able to establish connections and gain industry information from the continent’s pioneers thanks to an 18-month journey around the continent. According to Goillot and Kakon, they make sector-neutral investments with a “passion” for African regions.
The Kara Ventures team has studied markets from Morocco and Tunisia to South Africa, and from Ghana, Nigeria, and Cote d’Ivoire to Kenya and Uganda. The team has previously launched six African firms. 20 African startups could be supported by the side fund over the duration of its existence.
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Typically investing between $25,000 and $100,000, Kara Ventures also helps each firm with its go-to-market plan, hiring, legal operations, and additional fundraising. A “collection of tech angels” that is supporting AfricaTech and gathering data for the larger European VC sector is funding the programme.
Quick data about technological innovation in Africa: According to Kara Ventures, about half of the population owns a mobile phone, and by 2025, the African internet economy may be worth $180 billion. By the middle of the century, half of Africans would be under 24 years old, according to Kara. The demography is also increasing younger.
In a LinkedIn post, angel investor Jérémy Goillot, who also started the growth career education programme Growth.Talent, said: “I wish to dedicate my evenings and weekends to supporting this promising ecosystem. With Rena Kakon, we took on the (crazy) challenge of investing in the best African startups during our free time.
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“In seven months we created a fund, embarked rockstar angels, visited 10 African countries and closed six investments!”
Kara Ventures African startups Kara Ventures African startups
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