Partech Africa II reaches oversubscribed first close at $263M

Three years after global VC firm Partech announced the final close of its first Africa fund, the firm has secured $262 million for the first close of its second fund—Partech Africa II.

"We had set an ambitious goal for Partech Africa II at $250 million. We overreached it with a closed amount already above the target fund size," Cyril Collon, General Partner at Partech Africa, said in a statement seen by Benjamindada.com.

In 2018, Partech announced the launch of its Africa-focused strategy with a first Fund of $133 million.

Today, the portfolio counts 17 companies that started in 9 African countries and now operating in 27 countries on the continent. These category leaders are bringing value to over 1 million merchants and 20 million end users, across a large set of sectors from fintech to healthtech, logistics and edtech.

According to the VC firm, this portfolio has attracted over 10% of the investment in Africa in 2021 as well as in 2022.

With the success of the first fund, Partech Africa will continue to lead and co-lead rounds with a larger ticket range, co-investing with the best regional and global players, and playing an active role in bringing financial, strategic, and operational support to African founders.

Partech Africa Fund II is targeting not more than $300 million for its final close. "We know there are many more champions to build in Africa and we are ready to support them," Partech General Partner, Tidjane Deme, said.

According to Deme, that fund's strategy is to invest in deep economic sectors that are usually highly fragmented and informal in Africa with many inefficiencies where bringing a tech platform with robust operations can build something that creates a lot of value.

To execute this strategy, the team, led by Dème and Cyril Collon comprises of Marie Benrubi, Sabrine Chahrour, Lewam Kefela, Matthieu Marchand, based in Dakar, Nairobi and Dubai, is expanding into new locations.

It is augmented by Partech's robust global platform with 3 members dedicated to Partech Africa: Romane Assou, Léa Gnaly and Alhou Maiga. This platform provides support across key functions such as Business Development & Portfolio Support, Founders Community, ESG, Finance, Compliance, and Legal.

The focus of Partech Africa II

Partech Africa II will invest in over 20 Series A and B companies operating in fintech, healthtech, logistics, mobility and edtech. The company has previously invested in TradeDepot, Wave, Yoco, Reliance and Nomba.

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Partech Africa II is the largest tech fund in Africa, providing $1 million to $15 million in initial tickets from seed to growth stages.

According to Partech, limited partners that participated in this first round come from diverse profiles: DFIs and corporates to African fund of funds, family offices and HNIs, including anchor investor KfW, and the German Development Bank.

Others are existing and new LPs, including Bpifrance Investissement; the International Finance Corporation (IFC), which was the anchor investor in the Partech Africa I; South Suez; FMO; Bertelsmann; European Investment Bank (EIB); British International Investment (BII); Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft mbH (DEG); and Proparco.