Antler East Africa, the Nairobi workplace of VC agency and enterprise builder Antler, has closed a $13.5 million fund to spend money on early-stage tech startups within the area.
The oversubscribed spherical — Antler meant to boost $10 million however ended up with an additional $3.5 million — has LPs that embrace Baillie Gifford, a widely known Tesla backer; household workplaces reminiscent of Canica; and institutional traders just like the IFC.
Antler East Africa was launched in August 2019. It runs a full enterprise constructing mannequin with two cohorts annually.
5 cohorts with 153 founders have handed by way of the accelerator packages to date, and the agency has made 14 investments. Just a few of them embrace AIfluence, Marketforce-subsidiary Digiduka, Honeycoin, Uncover Skincare, Strive Cooked and Vybe.
Nonetheless, its mother or father firm, Antler, based two years earlier by Magnus Grimeland, employs a blended mannequin the place it acts as a enterprise builder and VC agency.
The agency, which invests from pre-seed to Collection C, has minimize checks in additional than 250 firms from its $300 million fund.
Antler East Africa’s new fund permits it to embrace the same strategy: accepting founders who wish to construct their startups from scratch and investing in already fashioned groups that want capital to scale.
“We nonetheless do the enterprise constructing. That’s nonetheless the core of what we do. Simply that now that the fund is closed, we manage to pay for to spend in current companies which might be coming in,” Selam Kebede, the agency’s director, informed TechCrunch over a name. “And we are able to spend money on stuff that’s already been constructed with a pure sort of VCs sort setup funding.”
Kebede is a part of the all-female-led staff that features companions Melalite Ayenew and Marie Nielsen and program supervisor Joana Borges.
Antler stated it could settle for founders and groups on a rolling foundation. Founders going for the enterprise constructing mannequin to discover a co-founder and launch an concept will keep inside Antler’s group for as much as six months.
For current startups, two to 6 weeks is all that’s wanted for Antler East Africa to work with the staff earlier than the agency cuts a test. Antler East Africa says it can make investments as much as $100,000 in these startups at a “mutually agreed valuation.” It plans to make 35 new investments from pre-seed to Collection A over the subsequent three years. There’s additionally an association for the worldwide Antler fund to observe up on some rounds all the way in which to Collection C.
“What modified now’s, previously, we had been going solely from zero to love the primary $100,000 ticket. However now we’re saying we are able to additionally soak up current groups and concepts that fashioned exterior of Antler, however they will come to us after which we are able to make investments simply like another VC would,” Kebede famous.
“In order that modified a bit from what we sometimes used to do previously three years. Now, we are able to begin from actually day zero to assist you and provide the first institutional ticket following as much as Collection C and D.”
Kebede informed TechCrunch that Antler East Africa is sector agnostic. However, the agency is eager on investing in startups fixing issues in local weather tech, agritech and fintech. She additionally stated the staff has already made a number of investments with this new format however declined to reveal their names.
Being a female-led VC staff, Antler East Africa is explicit about investing extra in startups based and led by ladies within the area, Kebede stated. It can attempt to enhance the numbers from its enterprise constructing mannequin, the place 25% of the founders in its portfolio are ladies.
In the meantime, female-run VC companies are impressively taking on their place in a male-dominated tech house as they attempt to handle the funding hole that has plagued the business for years. The Antler East Africa staff, led by Ayenew and Nielsen, joins that checklist of such companies, together with these specifically devoted to female-founded and led groups like Alitheia Capital and FirstCheck Africa.
“There are few or no female-run VC 100% that I do know of, no less than in Kenya. However our companions [Ayenew and Nielsen] and I, we’re all ladies,” expressed Kebede.
“And so it’s been tremendous thrilling to have the ability to do that, particularly as first-time fund managers. It hasn’t been simple although as a result of, you already know, there’s the added sort of scrutiny and concern from different folks after they see solely ladies operating it, nevertheless it has been thrilling too.”