Pan African Venture Capital (VC) firm LoftyInc Capital Management announced the launch of its third fund for African startups. The fund is called LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 3 and the sum of $10 million will be invested in African startups through the third fund program.
LoftyInc Capital Management empowers African entrepreneurs to build a prosperous and equitable future in Africa. It is one of the earliest backers of Flutterwave – an African-based fintech company that provides a payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent. According to information on the company’s website, it has invested (and continually seeks to invest) in many of Africa’s tech trailblazers across industries like finance, health, agriculture, energy and technology, and “believes that early-stage success is primarily about the people, and early-stage investing is not really about deal flow but about people flow”.
The following are some of its limited partners for its LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 3(a handful of which were part of its second fund); FBNQuest Funds, syndicates from The Green Investment Club, HNIs from multinationals like Google, Facebook, and ExxonMobil; and Andela CEO Jeremy Johnson, etc.
LoftyInc Capital Management is doing a great job with its investment in African startups. The major challenge that African startups face is the inability to raise funds or sustain themselves due to the lack of funds. This is the gap that LoftyInc Capital Management aims to fill with its investments in African startups and so far, it has made more than twenty investments in African startups since it started. Its investments so far cut across startups in industries like fintech, health, e-commerce, etc. Some of the startups that have seen investments from LoftyInc Capital Management include Afrikrea, Star News Mobile, Omnibiz, RXAll, Sudo Africa, Tech Advance, Aladdin, Flex Finance, Star Kitchens Group, Flutterwave, EPump, Odiggo, Illa, Tagaddod, Instadiet. Akiba Digital, Beamm, Zazu Africa, Cashback, Dash, etc.
The announcement of the LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 3 brings the number of funds that it runs (simultaneously) to three. While its second fund is largely focused on startups in Nigeria, the newly-launched LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 3 will be used to invest in startups across different (new) markets in Africa and the diaspora. The VC firm says it wants to spread its wings and start investing in startups outside of Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, and Egypt, where its major investments have been geared to.
