Equator, a climate tech venture capital firm focused on sub-Saharan Africa, has closed its first fund with $40 million in commitments, led by Development finance institutions (DFIs), including the British International Investment (BII), FMO and Norfund, and impact investor DOEN Participaties, according to the company’s statement.
The firm will invest in startups across energy, agriculture and mobility sectors that bring some element of technology, whether hardware or software or business model innovation, to bear in a region where innovation might be lacking. Equator will pay attention to technical founders with domain expertise who are building solutions around clean energy, agriculture and mobility, and who ultimately address the impact of climate change on income inequality in Africa.
The firm, which has teams in Nairobi, Lagos, London and Colorado, plans to make up to 15 investments throughout this fund’s life cycle and participates in round sizes of $10 million or less, typical for pre-Series B clean tech startups in sub-Saharan Africa. The clean tech VC invests between $1 million and $2 million for seed stages and between $2 million and $4 million for Series A stages.
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Equator will also leverage support from Factor[e] Ventures, an organization of venture builders and pre-seed investors. The two firms operate independently, but collaborate on sourcing deals and undertaking due diligence, and they share a post-investment support platform to provide value to portfolio companies as they scale.
Equator climate fund Africa
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