Seedstars Africa Ventures Receives $30 Million Investment from EIB Global, EIB Global's Branch

The European Investment Bank's branch, EIB Global, has committed $30 million to Seedstars Africa Ventures, marking the first significant institutional investment for the company's inaugural pan-African venture capital fund.

The latest pledge comes after the fund's anchor investor, the French private equity firm LBO France, invested $8 million.

With a goal of raising between $80 million and $100 million, the fund will help seed and Series A businesses and provide follow-on funding up to Series B, filling a significant financial vacuum and assisting businesses outside of accelerator programs.

Maxime Bouan, Tamim El Zein, and Bruce Nsereko-Lule, partners in the venture capital firm, collaborated with Seedstars Group, an accelerator for emerging markets, to launch the fund by utilizing its infrastructure and market access in Africa.

According to the firm, the larger-than-average fund (for Africa) would bridge funding shortages in regions outside of the major four (South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, and Kenya), give founders operational and business support, and provide "capital well suited to the needs of entrepreneurs" in the continent.

“When the team launched in 2020, there was very little capital available beyond acceleration, so there was a clear need to provide more capital at this stage. The team wanted to be pan-African from the onset and be able to provide hands-on support to portfolio companies through a targeted early-stage investment strategy,” said Bouan.

He then added, “We approached Seedstars with a win-win opportunity to build a complementary post-acceleration fund that would leverage some of the resources and market access that they had already built. This would contribute to strengthening the continuum of capital by offering different types of funding suited to the entrepreneurs’ maturity, and catalyzing international and local follower investor capital.”

Annie Njanja / TechCrunch