Partech has announced the first close of Partech Africa II at €245 million, exceeding the intended fund size.
“We had set an ambitious goal for Partech Africa II at €230M, with a hard cap at €280M, essentially doubling the size of our first fund. We overreached it with a closed amount already above the target fund size,” said Cyril Collon, General Partner at Partech Africa. “This would not have been possible without the trust and the support from our major existing investors. We are honoured that top-tier global institutions and strategic commercial investors have decided to back Partech Africa II,” he added.
Partech Africa II will expand on its successful strategy of identifying and supporting the continent’s next generation of category leaders. The Fund will award initial tickets ranging from $1 million to $15 million from Seed to Growth to entrepreneurs who employ a combination of technology and outstanding operations to address some of the continent’s difficult-to-solve but massive issues across all sectors.
Major Development Finance Institutions (DFIs), Institutional, and Commercial investors support this second iteration of Partech’s Africa-focused strategy. These investors include anchor investor KfW, the German Development Bank, as well as the European Investment Bank (EIB), International Finance Corporation (IFC), FMO, the Dutch Entrepreneurial Development Bank, Bpifrance Investissement, British International Investment (BII), DEG, and Proparco.
“With Partech Africa II, our investment thesis is actually to pursue the successful strategy of our first fund,” commented Tidjane Dème, General Partner at Partech Africa. “We launched this strategy when less than $400m were invested annually in equity on the continent. African tech companies are now raising $6bn annually validating our early commitment beyond any expectations. Still, we know there are many more champions to build in Africa and we are ready to support them,” he said.
With a first Fund of €125 million, Partech launched its Africa-focused strategy in 2018.
The portfolio now includes 17 businesses that were founded in 9 African nations and are currently active in 27 of those nations. Over one million merchants and over 20 million end users are benefiting from these category leaders across a wide range of industries, including Fintech, Healthtech, Logistics, and Edtech.
In both 2021 and 2022, this portfolio attracted 10% or more of all investments made in Africa.
Building on the lessons learned from the previous fund, Partech Africa will continue to lead and co-lead rounds with a wider ticket range, co-investing with the top regional and international players, and actively supporting African founders financially, strategically, and operationally.
The team, which is based in Dakar, Nairobi, and Dubai and is led by Cyril Collon and Tidjane Dème and also includes Marie Benrubi, Sabrine Chahrour, Lewam Kefela, and Matthieu Marchand, is expanding into other cities to carry out this approach.
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With three of its members — Romane Assou, Léa Gnaly, and Alhou Maiga — dedicated to Partech Africa, the strong worldwide platform of Partech is enhanced.
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