Investor Updates: Algebra Ventures closes $100m fund; daba finance invests in Spleet's seed funding.

daba finance participates in Spleet’s $2.6m seed funding

Highlights

• daba finance, a startup that enables seamless investing in Africa’s best private and public companies, has participated in a $2.6 million seed funding round by Nigeria-based Spleet, which provides residential rent management and financing products.
• Spleet was founded in 2018, and its mission is to build a marketplace to connect landlords with vetted tenants looking for flexible rent payment options. 
• Since its inception, Spleet claims to have processed millions in rent, housed over 1,000 tenants, and onboarded over 35 individual and corporate landlords. Following this investment, it plans to scale its product offerings.

Source: Spleet blog

Our Takeaway

Spleet is one of the foremost startups giving Africa’s real estate and property market a facelift, with a focus on affordability, which remains a big pain point for housing residents in urban areas. Its fundraising is thus positive for the proptech space but more noteworthy is daba finance’s participation in the round. daba is one of the very few players disrupting the African funding landscape with a platform that provides everyday investors with investment analysis and wealth-building resources to aid their investment decisions in the African private and public capital markets. At the other end of the spectrum, it helps qualified companies bypass the traditional barriers to accessing capital.

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Algebra Ventures completes first close of second fund at $100m

Highlights

• Egypt-based VC fund Algebra Ventures has finalized a $100 million first close of its second fund, exceeding the targeted $90 million. It expects to make the final close by the end of Q1 2023.
• Algebra plans to invest $15 million in startups by the end of 2022 while exploring investment opportunities in East and West Africa, however, the main focus remains on Egypt.
• Founded in 2016 by Karim Hussein, Tarek Assaad, and Ziad Mokhtar, Algebra’s second fund is backed by existing LPs from the first fund including IFC, EBRD, and EAEF. New investors include FMO, BII, MSMEDA, DGGF, and regional family offices.

Source: TechCrunch

Our Takeaway

Algebra Ventures is one of the few firms that have recently reached the first or final close of significant funds targeting the Middle East, including ADQ-backed Further Ventures and Endure Capital. It is also arguably the largest indigenous fund in Africa and lists alongside Partech Africa, TLcom Capital, Norrsken22, and Novastar Ventures as well-established funds investing in African growth-stage companies. These funds were pivotal to the increase in venture capital that flowed into Africa’s tech ecosystem, totaling more than $5 billion and minting “soonicorns” and unicorns in the process.

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SA’s Grindstone, Naspers Labs launch all-female accelerator program

Highlights

• South Africa’s Grindstone Accelerator has partnered Naspers Labs to launch GrindstoneX, a new all-female accelerator program designed to make women-led startups more investible, scalable, and exit-ready.
• Founded in 2014 and co-owned by Knife Capital and Thinkroom, Grindstone focuses on assisting high-growth, innovation-driven companies to enable scale in their businesses. Naspers Labs, meanwhile, is the youth development program of Naspers.
• GrindstoneX will each year source 10 female-founded South African businesses and put them through Grindstone’s 12-month growth engineering program, which assesses a business on its unique merits and then enables them to undergo business transformation and growth via targeted interventions.

Source: Disrupt Africa

Our Takeaway
Investments in Africa’s tech ecosystem hit $5 billion in 2021, however, female founders could only get a fraction of the total pie. According to Briter Bridges and the World Bank’s Africa Gender Innovation Lab (GIL), only 3% of African tech startup funding since 2013 has gone to companies with all-female founding teams. If greater gender equity is to be achieved in a male-dominated landscape, female entrepreneurs solving key challenges need more support.