Africa’s
early-stage investor, Founders Factory Africa has secured an additional $114
million in funding from Mastercard Foundation and Johnson & Johnson Impact
Ventures to scale it model to better serve founders across Africa tech
ecosystem.
According to a statement issued on Monday, the additional
support from the Mastercard Foundation and Johnson & Johnson Impact
Ventures, an impact fund within the Johnson & Johnson Foundation, follows
on from previous investments into Founders Factory Africa by Standard Bank,
Small Foundation and Netcare.
“We are excited to have new and dynamic funding, which
follows on from previous investments into Founders Factory Africa by Standard
Bank Group, Small Foundation and Netcare Group,”
says Alina Truhina, co-founder of Founders Factory Africa.
The support will
enable Founders Factory Africa to scale its model and better serve
technology-led start-ups and founders across the African continent. Since its
inception in 2018, Founders Factory Africa has catalysed the trajectory of over
55 tech start-ups across the continent.
The additional funding affirms Founders Factory
Africa’s hybrid investment model of combining capital and operational support
and will help the early-stage investor further iterate this model by becoming
sector-agnostic in its investment with founders who prioritise business
fundamentals, and will also double down on addressing the gender imbalance in
the ecosystem, broadening its capital investment offering to include
non-dilutive capital, supporting the continent’s need for different capital
deployment types across the venture maturity curve, and strengthening Founders
Factory Africa’s internal capacity to continue to provide its portfolio of
start-ups with the best venture-building support on the continent.
“Moving Africa forward requires more of us to support
tech-driven, solution-oriented ventures that have the potential to scale and
make an impact at speed. Our role as Founders Factory Africa is to provide
founders with the funding, knowledge and hands-on venture building support they
need to achieve commercial success and create outsized, systemic impact.”
Founders Factory Africa is an African early-stage
investor supporting founders across the continent to deliver local solutions to
local challenges. It has a portfolio of over 55 ventures across 11 countries in
East, West, North and Southern Africa.