Seedstars Africa Ventures, the pan-African seed fund for startups, has appointed Bruce Nsereko-Lule as its new general partner, to help it deploy more capital and provide much-needed technical support to founders across the continent.
Seedstars Africa Ventures – part of the Seedstars Group, a globally active accelerator and VC in over 30 emerging markets – provides seed capital of up to $2 million in seed and Series A. French investment firm LBO France among its limited partners and has, to date, invested more than $5 million in five startups, including Kenyan ISP Poa Internet and Nigerian network management SaaS for electricity distribution utilities Beacon Power Services, since its inception. in 2020.
The fund, which plans to deploy more capital in the coming months, will leverage Nsereko-Lule’s extensive experience and the networks he has acquired over the years as an active venture capitalist in Africa.
Nsereko-Lule told TechCrunch that his focus in the fund will be to help him make big investments in the continent and provide seed and follow-on funding to cushion startups and help them build and grow businesses. .
“We will do a first check and basically we will lead the round. And then we will continue to fund until the business has reached appropriate growth, and probably reached profitability and has exit and expansion opportunities,” said Nsereko-Lule, who joined Tamim El Zein , and Maxime Bouan, the other general partners of the fund.
“By doing this, we are providing more funding to local founders and trying to stop this constant fundraising loop that founders find themselves in. The support is meant to help them spend all of their time growing the business. “
The general partners of Seedstars Africa Ventures (LR) Tamim El Zein, Bruce Nsereko-Lule and Maxime Bouan. Image credits: Seedstars Africa Ventures
Prior to joining the fund, Nsereko-Lule was previously the founding investment director of Chandaria Capital, a Kenya-based venture capital fund founded in 2017 to serve as an investment vehicle for Chandaria Industries. He had previously worked as an investment banker in the UK
Chandaria Capital has supported 38 startups
During his time at Chandaria Capital, Nsereko-Lule says he invested millions of dollars in 38 startups, starting in Kenya before entering other African and emerging markets in South America and Asia.
By the end of his tenure, the industry-independent fund had completed 52 deals (including follow-on investments) with startups including Tushop, Jumba, Wasoko, Kobo360, TradeDepot, Carry1st, Shara and Chari.
“I was in charge of operations, and it was an exciting adventure; it was something completely new, but I had my financial training. We decided to be an industry independent fund from day one, and that’s because we saw multiple investment opportunities across the continent,” he said.
At Seedstars Africa Ventures, Nsereko-Lule plans to continue supporting founders across the continent on an even larger scale, as he believes there are many great startups in Africa struggling to secure funding.
“Venture capital in Africa is doing very well. You see multiple companies getting funding, creating sustainable business models, growing and scaling. An interesting fact is that the startups we have invested in have managed to raise over $450 million since our investment. So this really proves that Africa has succeeded in creating an environment in which businesses can successfully grow and evolve into valuable businesses,” Nsereko-Lule said.
He added: “We are also in a privileged position where we have a much higher success rate. With really successful startups scaling up and getting more funding. And we’re starting to see the development of releases.
The Seedstars Africa Ventures fund aims to raise $100 million to invest in startups in Africa – which continue to receive the least venture capital funding compared to other regions of the world. Last year, the continent received almost $5 billion in venture capital funding, and although this was almost double the previous year, the funding was negligible compared to markets like the United States. ($311-329.8 billion) and India ($42 billion).
However, Nsereko-Lule says the ecosystem will continue to grow.
“There are many opportunities to invest, provide good returns and, at the same time, have an impact on the continent.”
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