Morocco’s Al Mada Announces $110m pan-African startup investment fund
Al Mada Holding Group of Morocco announced earlier this week the establishment of a pan-African venture capital fund to invest in the continent’s fast-growing startups.
With a budget of MAD1.1 billion (€100 million), the Al Mada-backed venture fund aims to attract innovative investors and participate in the rapidly developing African startup ecosystem, according to converging news reports.
The new venture capital aims to capitalize on the significant growth prospects of the African startup industry, which has grown 12-fold in the last five years despite receiving only 1% of funding from global venture capital firms.
The venture capital fund seeks to assist promising technology-oriented firms in expanding and emerging in areas such as financial services (fintech), health technology, logistics, education, and renewable energy.
In addition to direct funding, the Al Mada venture fund will provide startups with access to the fund’s extensive network of partners.
Al Mada, posing as a vertical accelerator venture capital, aims to invest responsibly in the continent’s talents and future industries.
“Al Mada is delighted to bring its 100-year experience as a pan-African inverter to young innovative entrepreneurs who are building Africa of tomorrow,” the Moroccan company stated. “Startups will thus be able to rely on our solid expertise as well as that of our Venture Capital teams.”
African startups are thriving, aided by the exponential growth of fintech startups. African startups will have raised a total of $4.65 billion by 2021. This year, startups across the continent raised $1 billion in a record seven weeks, prompting experts to predict that the African startup ecosystem will be worth $7.3 billion by the end of 2022.
