[NEWS] Cathay Capital and AfricInvest to raise $168M Africa VC fund – Loganspace

Tunisia essentially essentially based non-public equity firmAfricinvesthas teamed up withCathay Capital— a international non-public equity firm essentially essentially based in Paris — to launch a new Africa tech fund with a target elevate of $168 million.

Significant aspects are peaceable imminent, however the Cathay Africinvest Innovation Fund will point of curiosity essentially on sequence A to C stage investments in African technology corporations, says fund co-founder Denis Barrier.

“We’ll gape at investments all the draw through a couple of countries in Africa. We’ll point of curiosity on areas akin to fintech, logistics, AI, agtech, and edutech,” Barrier says.

Barrier would possibly perhaps presumably presumably no longer advise when the fund would possibly perhaps presumably presumably be closed, but did verify investments would possibly perhaps presumably presumably attain as early as summer season 2019.  He expects to peep sturdy native showing for startups from all the draw through Africinvest’s 10 country offices in Abidjan, Algiers, Cairo, Casablanca, Dubai, Lagos, Nairobi, Paris and Port Louis, and Tunis. The firm will birth an place of work in Johannesburg within the near future, essentially essentially based on a firm release.

Within the non-public equity condo, both founding corporations of the brand new Cathay Africinvest Innovation Fund  lift appreciable capital and scope. Co-founded by Denis Barrier and Mingpo Cai, Cathay Capital has $2.5 billion in assets beneath administration and offices within the U.S., Europe, Asia, and the Center-East.

PerCrunchbase,Africinvest’s 46 enterprise and debt investments span the brick and mortar facet of a quantity of the sectors the brand new tech fund looks to center of attention on, in conjunction with training and banking.

With the line between banks and fintech additionally initiating to blur in Africa, that will presumably presumably lead to an income for the Cathay Africinvest Innovation Fund in sourcing deal poke alongside with the stream.

The new funding neighborhood enters within the center of a period when funding rounds and the quantity of funds centered on African startups continues to develop posthaste. By Shenzen or Silicon Valley requirements, the price of VC to African startups—which surpassed $1 billion for the important time in 2018essentially essentially based on Partech—is minuscule. Butby one estimate, that represents more than a one-hundred percent develop in VC to Africa over a four-300 and sixty five days period.

The quantity of Africa centered VC companies globally has additionally grown, topping 51 in 2018 perTechCrunch and Crunchbase learn.

The Cathay Africinvest Innovation Fund takes the quantity of to 52.