Venture Capital Firm Atlantica Ventures Raises $50 Million For Seed Funding
Venture Capital Firm Atlantica Ventures Raises $50 Million For Seed Funding. Founded in 2019 by Aniko Szigetvari and Ik Kanu, who have previously worked for the likes of IFC, Helios and Convergence and have extensive angel investing experience, Atlantica Ventures counts among its portfolio the likes of Paystack, recently acquired by Stripe, and Sendy.
Its new US$50 million pan-African VC fund, through which it has already invested in Nigerian start-ups Curacel and OnePipe, is financed by development financial institutions, a US fund of funds, and various high net worth individuals, and will invest in tech and tech-enabled businesses at seed stage.
“We invest from seed to Series B rounds with a data-driven approach for investment opportunity evaluation and portfolio management. These start-ups are solving essential local problems and have demonstrated product market fit with the ability to scale globally. Atlantica Ventures becomes a mentor and partner to the start-up, not just an investor. The partners have deep experience in investing and supporting companies from early stage to growth, and also turnarounds. The support is not just from an investment standpoint, but also hands-on operational.” Kanu told Disrupt Africa in an interview.
According to Disrupt Africa, primary target markets are Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Tanzania, which between them represent 60 per cent of Africa’s GDP, while it is focused on fintech, logistics, agri-tech, digital security, IoT, and B2B marketplaces.
Kanu told Disrupt Africa that, “These are significant contributors to the target markets’ GDPs and are interlinked, allowing for value chain/platform investing. These sectors also exhibit some recession fluidity, and are aligned with the future-of-work. COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of technology across our target markets, and these sectors have been pivotal to the economies.”
“Atlantica Ventures partners have relationships with global investors, sector players in other markets (small to large), and development financial institutions to help solve these access challenges. Being able to provide knowledge access to advisors and comparable companies in non-competing markets helps entrepreneurs build for global scale and avoid typical pitfalls that have stumped other founders.” Kanu added.
