Check-in with the Partech Africa fund: 2019 was an active and exciting year

Last time we shared a public update in January 2019, Partech Africa had just reached a final closing at €125M ($143M), opened Nairobi offices and closed 3 deals in 2018. 

A year later here is where we stand: 

● 8 new transactions including 6 new companies, reaching now a total of 9 portfolio startups;

● Half of these transactions were between $3M and $7M;

● Our startups are based in 6 countries and active in financial services, informal retail, customer support, logistics, education and health.  

We are now ending 2019 on target having completed 8 transactions, 6 new deals and 2 follow-on investments. We have also deployed according to target mostly on Series A & B, half of these tickets ranging between $3M and $7M. We also have ventured in late seed with two companies, impressed with the quality of their founders and their early achievements. 

So, in total, we’ve welcomed six (6) new outstanding teams into the growing Partech Africa branch of the larger Partech Family. Our nine (9) portfolio companies work from six (6) countries in Africa and together have an extremely  large impact in their spaces: more than one hundred thousand (100k+) merchants being served, four billions dollars ($4B+) of financial transactions per year, 20M+ end-users, etc. 

While most of the new portfolio companies are yet to disclose their funding, we find that those who did are a fair representation of this group. Let’s take a look at a few of them. 

Kudi announced in April 2019 a $5M round led by Partech. This leader in digital payments and collection for the cash economy in Nigeria has maintained a brisk pace: in less than a year, Kudi has grown its network and revenues by five times (5x) while maintaining a very high capital efficiency.

Yoco is the leading South African fintech that builds tools and services to help entrepreneurs

start, run and grow their businesses. In September, the company launched the Yoco Go, the most affordable card machine the market has ever seen. Since then, Yoco has been adding new merchants at an unprecedented rate, now servicing more than 64 000 merchants across South Africa and well on track to double their merchant base this year.

In Nigeria, TradeDepot, a mobile B2B trade platform that connects retailers in emerging markets directly to FMCG brands for ordering and delivery, have reached c. 30k active retailers in Nigeria alone with a GMV and revenue growth over 4x on a yearly basis.

“These companies have validated our investment strategy: outstanding team, with validated model, addressing fundamental economic opportunities will build the next African champions.  We will continue to focus on financial inclusion, online and mobile consumer services, as well as mobility, supply chain services and digitization of the informal economy,” explains Tidjane Dème, General Partner at Partech Africa.

As underlined in our annual reports over the past few years, this is a fast-growing ecosystem. “Even with 6 new investments this year and two re-investments, we had to be extremely selective: we’ve engaged over 600 companies raising money this year, among them many great startups led by strong entrepreneurs. It proves that the skyrocketing numbers of tech fundraising in Africa are supported by strong fundamentals” adds Cyril Collon, General Partner at Partech Africa.

We will share more on our analysis of the ecosystem in the coming Partech Africa VC funding report for 2019. Stay tuned. 

You can read the full Press Release here.