Multinational - Africinvest-Cathay Innovation Management

Cathay-AfricInvest Innovation Fund LLC is a venture capital fund dedicated to African Entrepreneurs for a 10 life with a 5 year investment period. The fund is structured as a Mauritius limited life company with a Global Business License. The Fund invests in seed and growth investments. The Fund targets a total investor commitment of around €110m, to be deployed in an estimated 24 companies in SSA. The current advanced pipeline and investees are well spread between regions: 31% in West Africa (Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana) and 43% are Pan African start up with focus on at least two regions. Opportunistically the Innovation Fund is targeting Northern Africa (11%), Southern Africa (9%) and Eastern Africa (6%) This being one of the early VC funds in Africa, priority countries were identified where the VC ecosystem is sufficiently developed with adequate pipeline opportunities, but where tech enabled companies are still facing important funding constraints. Supported investees will be aided to grow and expand at home, and into neighbouring countries and across regions. The fund supporting high potential tech start-ups that have the potential to step up to fight the coronavirus (24% of startups investees pipeline are healthtech). As such, the Fund makes an important contribution to strengthen the local economies during the Covid-19 economic downturn. The project primely contributes towards climate mitigation result. As such 30% of the total approval is attributed as climate finance, out of which USD 2 milion is mitigation finance.