Beyond Capital Ventures (BCV), which recently announced the full closure of its emerging markets venture capital fund, is happy to announce a collaboration with Impact Investors Inc., a financial planning and advisory services organisation specialising in sustainable and responsible impact investing. Both organisations share a common goal: to direct investments with the goal of catalysing firms that improve the quality of life for rising consumers in India and Africa through a gender lens.
Impact Investors Inc. invested $1 million in the fund to assist Beyond Capital Ventures in reaching its ultimate close on November 30, 2022. Impact Investors Inc. was an early proponent and advocate for the Beyond Capital Ventures team as an anchor investor in the fund’s initial closing.
“Impact Investors Inc. has been a forward-thinking and engaged partner from the start. Their early anchor investment truly catalyzed our firm, and the support we have received since from Monica Miller and her team has been outstanding,” said Eva Yazhari, General Partner of Beyond Capital Ventures. “Our firms are deeply aligned on the belief that business can and should be a force for long-lasting impact. Together, we will invest in future industry leaders who will enact change and improve access to need-to-have services in India and Africa.”
The early investment by Impact Investors Inc. sent a strong signal to investors. They join the 70+ Limited Partners who have supported Beyond Capital Ventures, allowing the fund to move on to the next chapter of its life: creating a diverse portfolio of early-stage enterprises in India and Africa that provide access to critical commodities and services. This includes healthcare, financial inclusion, and climate adaption solutions if the company has an innovative, scalable business model with true impact baked in.
Impact Investors Inc. is also committed to fostering the next wave of female fund managers. A gender lens is being advanced by Beyond Capital Ventures’ balanced leadership team not only at the team level but also in the portfolio, pipeline, and beyond. Less than 10% of venture funds worldwide have female partners.
“Financially prudent and direct impact exposure to Africa and India has been challenging to find. Beyond Capital Ventures is an impressive manager with its decade of experience in these regions and thorough due diligence process with portfolio companies,” said Monica Miller, Portfolio Manager and Partner, Private Assets at Impact Investors Inc.
Beyond Capital now has seven early-stage companies in its portfolio that are addressing the requirements of the ever increasing population in emerging markets. CarePoint is a tech-forward healthcare asset acquirer and operator; Frontier Markets is a last-mile distribution platform that provides essential products to rural households; Kasha is an African centralised digital platform for women’s health and personal care products; Lal10 is an online wholesale marketplace for Indian artisans and small business owners; Viebeg Medical is a data-driven healthcare logistics platform; and XENO is a goal-based investment platform that helps millions in Africa develop personal investment strategies; and FreshR, a B2B agritech platform to organize the fish and meat industry in India.
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