MENA VC Flat6Labs’ new fund to back startups in East, West Africa
Flat6Labs is among the most active VCs in Africa, obtaining invested in about a hundred startups to date, across the Center East and North Africa (MENA) location. And now, just after 11 many years, the Egypt-based seed-phase accelerator is location out on a foray into East and West Africa by way of a $95 million Africa Seed Fund financial commitment car or truck that will mark its to start with enterprise outdoors MENA.
“We’re embarking on a new period for the group by expanding into sub-Saharan Africa by Africa Seed Fund,” the firm’s CEO Ramez El-Serafy explained to TechCrunch, adding that the enlargement will be gradual, with two-thirds of its allocations continue to likely to enterprises in North Africa. Flat6Labs is eyeing an preliminary close ahead of the year finishes.
“We are incorporating Kenya and its neighboring marketplaces in East Africa, and the Anglophone and francophone sides of West Africa, like Nigeria, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Cameroon,” explained El-Serafy.
Flat6Labs has earlier administered region-specific money, which include a $10 million Anava Seed Fund for Tunisian startups, and it is only now that it is managing a fund for startups in several countries.
“With markets throughout the area maturing a tiny bit, it tends to make feeling that we start out hunting at cohesive locations in terms of the common buying ability, and opportunities — the goods that you see being produced in these marketplaces are quite very similar and quick to acquire from just one place to the upcoming,” claimed Flat6Labs CIO Dina El-Shenoufy.
Flat6Labs $95 million Africa Seed Fund is sector agnostic
The fund is sector agnostic and designs to commit in fintechs, healthtech, logistics, mobility, cleantech, agtech, retail and e-commerce startups.
Flat6Labs options to commit involving $150,000 and $400,000, and make follow-on investments of up to $500,000 to be certain ongoing help for the startups. It invested in between $30,000 to $100,000 in former cash.
“We give the capital, but there’s a massive benefit in phrases of how we function with the company simply because of how we placement ourselves as an institutional co-founder of the organization by assisting them set up the firm, sign-up it, and present entry to our networks. We are one of the few gamers in North Africa that is increasing south in Africa, so this is also a thing that also adds a good deal of worth when it arrives to our geographic exposure,” mentioned El-Serafy.
El-Shenoufy included that: “About 60 per cent of the checks will almost certainly be checks that transpire together with the software whereas the relaxation will be straight checks for additional experienced founders.”
The cohort, he claims, will have founders from diverse regions, building an option for persons from various cultures, and backgrounds to interact, share tips, work jointly, and achieve the prospect to access new marketplaces. Flat6Labs will admit 10 to 15 startups each individual six months in its seed method. The accelerator designs to back again up to 170 startups in excess of the future 5 several years.
Flat6Labs, which statements to have $100 million in belongings beneath administration, was founded in Egypt, and has about the several years deployed numerous country-precise funds, and accelerator programs with associates in 7 nations around the world including Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Lebanon.
Some of its associates in previous resources consist of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the MSME Growth Agency, Egypt Ventures and the Egyptian American Enterprise Fund.
With the new program, the accelerator hopes to be element of the guidance that startups across Africa have to have, especially in the wake of a rough fundraising environment.
“We’re extremely thrilled about Africa, it is a person of the quickest developing marketplaces in the world. It is incredibly unique in phrases of its youthful populace, and the want for technological know-how to resolve numerous of the difficulties that we encounter on the continent. It will make a good deal of feeling for us also as an business to be growing south,” claimed El-Serafy.
“We also know rising markets extremely properly. I’ve been functioning in the Center East for the very last 11 years investing in founders in the middle of revolutions like the Arab Spring.It’s wonderful to perform with all these founders and guidance them through these periods,” he stated.
