The 5 most popular stories on Africa Private Equity News this week
Here are summaries of the five most widely read stories this week on Africa Private Equity News.
1. AfricInvest exits Promamec to Vantage Capital
Vantage Capital, Africa’s largest mezzanine fund manager, has signed legal agreements relating to a €30 million equity investment for the acquisition of a significant minority stake in Promamec, which will facilitate the exit of the private equity fund AfricInvest, and fund growth capex. The transaction is conditional upon the approval of the Moroccan competition authorities.
Founded in the early 80s by the Lahlou Family, the company has grown into one of Morocco’s largest medical consumables and equipment distributors.
2. Injaro Ghana Venture Capital Fund lands new investor
The Minerals Income Investment Fund (MIIF) has committed GHS25 million ($2.1 million) to the Injaro Ghana Venture Capital Fund (IGVCF), managed by Injaro Investment Advisors.
The IGVCF’s investment strategy focuses on partnering with profitable Ghanaian SMEs with strong growth potential across sectors, including mining support services, food and agribusiness, education, healthcare, inclusive financial services, industrial services, and light manufacturing.
3. Egypt: Proparco invests in VC fund
French development finance institution Proparco has announced an investment in an early-stage venture capital fund managed by DisrupTech Ventures, to support development in Egypt’s fintech sector and help expand access to financial services in the country.
Proparco committed $5 million to DisrupTech, which aims to provide seed capital to up to 28 startups with a prime focus on financial technology services. The fund raised $36 million from several investors, including development finance institutions, funds-of-funds and family offices. It will be an important financing source for Egyptian tech companies, which often struggle to raise capital to bring their innovations to market.
4. South African construction company receives funding from Edge Growth fund
Oakantswe Construction and Projects, an electrical contracting firm, has secured funding from The Abadali Equity Equivalent Investment Programme (EEIP), which is administered by Edge Growth.
Based in Pretoria, Oakantswe Construction and Projects focuses on a wide range of electrical installations and renovations for commercial and industrial projects, both in Gauteng and across Southern Africa.
5. San Francisco-based VC backs African payments business
Nomba, a payment service provider for African businesses, has raised a $30 million pre-Series B funding round. The oversubscribed equity funding round was led by San Francisco-based Base10 Partners (investors in Nubank, Plaid and Brex), with participation from Helios Digital Ventures, Shopify, Partech and Khosla Ventures.
Since launching in 2016 as Kudi.ai, a chatbot integration that responds to financial requests on social apps, Nomba has evolved over the years into an omnichannel payment service provider. The company supports more than 300,000 businesses with a wide range of payment solutions, as well as management and banking tools that enable better business processes and support business owners to be better at doing business.