Future Africa reaches a $30M mark in AUM in 2021
The Future Africa fund, launched by co-founder and general investor, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, invested $4.3 million in 43 companies in 2021 to take its total assets under management (AUM) to $30 million.
The Future Africa Fund enables investors to commit to African startups without a deal-specific risk. Future Africa is a venture capital platform that provides capital, mentoring, and a hub for innovating founders.
Aboyeji, the co-founder of Andela and Flutterwave, created Future Africa alongside Olabinjo Adeniran and Adenike Sheriff in 2019 to build a community to expedite conversations about startups in Africa which later directed to investment funding for innovators, opening to co-investors at the peak of the pandemic.
The fund AUM reached the $30 million markers, from $600,000 in 2017. The platform has made several investments, the most recent being Web3 startup, Nestcoin. Other investments include Kwara, Lami, Ndovu, Edves, Eden Life, Wowzi, Stitch, Releaf, and mDaas Global. In addition, investors have raised over $290 million in follow-up funding in 2021.
“In furtherance of our pan–African drive, we expanded our geographical reach and made our investments debuts in Ghana, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia in 2021. Through these investments, Future Africa’s presence is now in six African countries, including Nigeria and Kenya,” said Aboyeji.
“At the start of 2021, we committed to ensuring that at least $1 million of our capital would go to female innovators. We delivered on this, investing over $2 million in companies with female founders. In total, we have 152 founders in our network, and one in three of our portfolio companies have a female co-founder, including Lami, Kwara, and Knabu, led by female CEOs.”
With a minimum of $25,000 per quarter, partners can gain pro-rata exposure to all investments Future Africa partakes. Through its Future Africa Collective, Future Africa also offers an opportunity for partners to invest in the best early-stage startups on the continent. For an annual subscription fee of $1000 or a quarterly fee of $300, investors are offered an exclusive membership to startups the platform is building for Africa.
Ayodeji continued that after a “transformative” 2021, 2022 would be even more phenomenal as the platform continues to identify, fund, and support founders who are making changes and providing solutions to problems in Africa, thus, reshaping the continent.