A new visual identity for Launch Africa
It was the middle of COVID-19, and over a 15-month period, we had raised $36.2m mostly through Zoom conversations from 250+ LPs from more than 40 countries across the globe. We then deployed that capital over a 2 ½ year period into the 133 aforementioned companies, across 22 different African countries. In many instances, we were the very first institutional investor to invest in countries like the DRC, Cameroon, Madagascar, Benin, Sudan and many others. We managed all of this in just over 2 years, and even caught the eye of Forbes and TechCrunch!
When we (Zachariah George and Janade Du Plessis) joined forces to start Launch Africa Ventures in July 2020, the number of VC tech deals on the African Continent in the preceding 2 years (2018 and 2019) was just 164 and 250 respectively, with the amount of equity funding a mere $1.2bn* and $2bn* respectively. (*Partech data)
By 2023, the number of equity deals increased by a CAGR of 17% to 473* deals while the value of investment increased marginally to $2.3bn* (2022 saw an exponential value increase to $4.9bn*). (*Partech data). Launch Africa alone made 133 investments totalling $31.0m from our first fund: Seed Fund 1. The early-stage VC funding gap in Africa may still take a while to close, but it is significantly smaller today.
In the last 9 months since Seed Fund 1 was fully deployed, we have had a chance to reflect on our successes and lessons learnt. A key strength in Fund 1 was our agility and ability to deliver high volume deal-making with stage-appropriate investment tools. We have since focused on structured institutionalization to ensure we can continue to execute investments with agility and efficiency in Fund 2 whilst we actively manage and exit the Fund 1 portfolio.
A large part of this was reflecting on and crystalising our mission and values.
The Launch Africa Mission:
Create a platform for founders from which they can launch their success. And significance.
Collaborate to solve the early stage funding gap in Africa.
Pioneer a thriving global tech innovation ecosystem in Africa.
Have a global presence with a local focus, whilst simultaneously providing great returns for investors.
Our brand values:
Pioneering. Efficient. Collaborative. Creative.
Pioneering
We are the first of our kind, investing in pioneers who are changing the face of tech and the continent.
The first emerging markets specialist early-stage fund investing at scale in the African VC industry with a market-leading position within 12 months. Our founders are pushing boundaries every day. Be it Affinity Africa banking the unbanked in Ghana, Releaf revolutionizing agriculture in Nigeria, or Gozem changing the face of mobility in Francophone Central and West Africa.
Using new investment instruments to deploy capital quicker, and a shorter fund life to make the case for African exits and return capital to our investors.
We were one of the first funds to use SAFE notes at scale rather than direct equity. This enabled us to deploy capital to founders quickly and help them grow and scale more efficiently.
A traditional VC fund lifespan is 10-12 years, however the lifespan of Seed Fund 1 is 5-7 years. We made this commitment to our LPs to prove that it is possible to gain liquidity from investing in Africa, thus making the case for Africa as a viable and attractive market for investment.
Investing in frontier markets outside of the Big Four- South Africa, Kenya, Egypt and Nigeria.
We were the first institutional investor in multiple countries - Senegal, Cameroon, the DRC and Sudan to name a few. We are encouraged to see those investments growing at a rate that is at times faster, and producing better exit prospects than our investments in the Big Four.
Efficient
Quicker, stage-appropriate investment-making timelines and investment instruments, in sync with a shorter fund life returning capital to investors.
The combination of conducting frequent closes and ICs with SAFE notes allows us to deploy capital quickly to founders, so that they can focus on growing their businesses.
Investors should also benefit from efficient access to capital, another reason why our Fund lifespan is 5-7 years in Fund 1.
Investment and coverage at scale with a tech-enabled team.
Our team works remotely across the continent and beyond (Cape Town, Johannesburg, Mauritius, Nairobi, Accra, Lagos, Dakar, Cairo, London, Dubai), and it is therefore imperative that we have excellent communication systems and a tech stack in place to facilitate smooth operations and comms.
We systematize our approach to portfolio management with a “coverage model” where each team member has their own portfolio, monthly touchpoints and relationship building that is hosted during our bi-weekly Office Hours sessions.
Investing in systems and processes to help us scale.
We have automated and simplified our portfolio reporting system so that it is quicker and easier for founders to report as well as giving us more frequent insights to portfolio health.
Collaborative
The whole team takes on coverage and works together to solve problems.
Portfolio management is a team sport at Launch Africa. We recognise the strength of working together, pooling our networks and collaborating on founder requests.
Founders supporting founders in our Founder Forum.
Our community of 180+ founders is constantly used to solving problems and sharing knowledge and resources.
Co-investments by LPs alongside the fund with NO fees and NO carry.
As part of our commitment to collaborating to bring more capital into the African Tech Ecosystem, we give our LPs the opportunity to co-invest alongside us with no fees or carry. In Fund 1, our LPs invested an additional $17m (vs. our $31m) of capital into 50+ of our portfolio companies.
Many LPs become strategic advisors for portcos, and we often introduce founders to connections that grow into corporate partnerships.
We recognise the importance and benefit of close working relationships with other local and global funds and ecosystem players and actively work to co-invest together.
Creative
Creative investor strategy.
We have 250+ LPs in Seed Fund 1, the majority of whom are retail investors. This is a creative way to solve the problem of a lack of sufficient institutional investors on the continent.
Finding new ways to exit.
With a large portfolio and shorter fund lifespan, we are creative about the way we exit our funds. We are looking at M&A within the portfolio, secondary sales and even securitisation of groups of companies as ready-made portfolios for investors looking to gain de-risked African exposure.
Coverage model.
Actively managing a high volume portfolio with a high-touch method requires a creative approach to ensure there is a balance between resources and ROI on those resources. We have done this through our systems, processes, automation and coverage model.
Portfolio synergy - regions, sectors and product.
We are constantly thinking about how our portfolio can work together. Whether it is BFree providing ethical debt collection for PayHippo, or HomecomingEx supporting the portfolio with their hiring needs, or EdVes partnering with Resolute Robotics in South Africa to get coding and robotic toolkits into the Nigerian high-school market.
With 100+ portfolio companies across several regions, sectors and product lines, the economies of scale and cost-synergies are truly endless.
Our new visual identity
And so, we have created a new visual identity for Launch Africa Ventures that represents our growth, the growth of the overall ecosystem and our ambitions for the future.
The green in the logo represents the seed, and the blue represents water and growth. The zigzag lines that illustrate Africa recognise the peaks and troughs of venture capital and serve as a reminder that it is the performance of the fund and the ecosystem as a whole that we must focus on.
If you would like more information on investing with Launch Africa, please get in touch
