Cathay AfricInvest Innovation

What is Cathay AfricInvest Innovation?

Cathay AfricInvest Innovation is a venture capital fund operating under a collaborative effort between Cathay Innovation and AfricInvest. It is touted as the first Pan-African Venture Fund designed to connect African startups to the world's leading innovation ecosystems. The core mission of the fund is to promote technological leapfrogging and drive significant socioeconomic impact across the African continent by investing in startups that offer innovative and inclusive solutions.

With a focus on a wide array of sectors including logistics, e-commerce, education technology (edtech), financial technology (fintech), mobility, healthcare technology (healthtech), energy, and agriculture technology (agtech), Cathay AfricInvest Innovation seeks out mission-driven teams that demonstrate readiness to scale their operations and impact.

Their investment strategy caters to early to growth-stage startups with initial check sizes ranging from $1 million to $10 million for growth-stage companies, and up to $1 million for select seed-stage startups.

The fund operates with the seasoned expertise of the AfricInvest team, which provides on-ground leadership through a common management company, backed by the global support of Cathay Innovation.

AfricInvest itself was founded in 1994 in Tunis and has become one of the leading VC and private equity firms in North and Sub-Saharan Africa, managing assets of worth $1.5 billion.

It is staffed by a diverse and skilled team, operating out of numerous international offices. Cathay AfricInvest Innovation actively contributes to the creation and expansion of digital infrastructures and services, aiming to elevate the African economy through digital transformation and connectivity.

What they say:

The Cathay Africinvest Innovation Fund is the first Pan-African Venture Fund created to connect the continent and the world’s leading innovation ecosystems. With the combination of socio-economic gaps and innovation drivers, startups have an opportunity to fuel a technological leapfrog that can improve over 1 billion lives across Africa. We want to fuel this transition by creating and connecting new digital infrastructures and services that will boost the economy to the next level.The fund is operated by the Africinvest team, through a common management company, with the value-added global support of Cathay Innovation.

What we look for: We invest in early to growth-stage startups based in or focused on Africa that are ready to scale and make a significant impact with innovative and inclusive solutions.We back mission-driven teams with a particular focus on logistics, e-commerce, edtech, fintech, mobility, healthtech, energy and agtech.Our initial check sizes range from $1 – $10M for growth-stage or select seed-stage tickets up to $1M.