Microtraction To Target Pre-seed African Startups With $15M New Fund
Microtraction, a Lagos-based early-stage venture capital firm, has raised $15 million for the first close of its community fund, which will invest in pre-seed stage startups across Africa.
The LPs in Microtraction’s latest community fund include over 30 venture-backed African company founders, including Helicarrier’s Ire Aderinokun, Paystack’s Shola Akinlade, Cowrywise’s Razaq Ahmed, 54gene’s Francis Osifo, Piggyvest’s Odun Eweniyi Paga’s Jay Alabraba, Spleet’s Tola Adesanmi, and Float’s Jesse Ghansah.
Others include Ribbit Capital’s Micky Malka, Hustle Fund’s Elizabeth Yin, Sebastes Capital’s Jason Fish, a16z’s David Haber, Y Combinator’s Michael Seibel, 776’s Alexis Ohanian, Tilo Bonow of Bonow Ventures, Charles Hudson of Precursor Ventures, Sheel Mohnot of Better Tomorrow Ventures, and Michael Sidgmore of Broadhaven Ventures.
Read also Ghanaian Agritech Startup WamiAgro Raises $227k To Support Grain Farmers
Microtraction wants to use this money to make first-round investments in at least 60 African entrepreneurs.
“Up to ~20% of those investments will get the quick top-up in their next round. So far, 20 investments have been made through this community fund,” the firm disclosed.
A Look At What Microtraction Does
Microtraction, founded in 2017 by Yele Bademosi and Kwamena Afful with initial funding from PAVE Investments, Michael Seibel, Andy Volk, and Chris Shultz, has invested in 36 startups with 83 founders across two funds in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda.
The venture capital firm’s portfolio includes fintech, health tech, SaaS, edtech, crypto, gaming, and mobility. These firms, which include 54gene, Cowrywise, Helicarrier, Lemonade Finance, Bitsika, and Raise, have secured over $100 million in follow-on financing and have generated over 900 jobs.
Read also Nigeria’s PalmPay Launches Workshop to Improve Payment Security Awareness
Over the course of three years, Microtraction funded 19 startups in four countries through its first fund. 14 of the 19 firms were accepted into global accelerators, 10 are valued at $10 million or more, 37% include female co-founders, and 18 have obtained follow-on financing. These companies have a total worth of more than $540 million.
In May, Microtraction evaluated their new standard offer ranging from $15,000 to $100,000 for 7% equity on a post-money SAFE and an opportunity for a rapid top-up of up to $350,000 in their next round.
“As a team, we constantly ask ourselves: ‘What do founders need right now? How do we improve our offering to founders? How do we differentiate ourselves from other investors?’. We realized, very quickly, that the difference between founders that are on the right track to building successful businesses and those that are not quite there yet, is access to a rich and valuable community that increases the odds of success,” Dayo Koleowo, Partner at Microtraction said.
Microtraction pre-seed Microtraction pre-seed
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