- Breega, a Paris-based VC, has announced the launch of its first African fund, "Breega Africa Seed I," which will invest in early-stage companies in Africa.
- The $75 million fund will be distributed to regions based on their technological maturity and start-up, with Nigeria, Egypt, South Africa, and Kenya among the recipients, besides several French-speaking African countries including Morocco, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Per a statement, the company intends to develop local teams to fully integrate into regional ecosystems, driving the decision to open operations in Nigeria and South Africa.
Breega plans to invest in pivotal sectors such as agrotech, edtech, healthtech, fintech, insurtech, proptech and logistics that meet the Sustainable Development Goals as defined by the United Nations.
Since it closed its first fund in 2015, Breega has achieved $700 million in assets under management in nine years. The firm has invested in over 100 startups across 15 countries and established 5 offices in the Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) region.
Previously, African startups such as Numida, Socium, Klasha, Kwara, Coachbit, and Sava had Breega's internal scaling team.
Melvyn Lubega, co-founder of African digital education unicorn Go1, will lead the new fund alongside Tosin Faniro-Dada, former CEO of Endeavor Nigeria and founder of startup incubator Lagos Innovates.
Lubega will lead the firm's activities in Eastern and Southern Africa from its Cape Town office, with Tosin Faniro-Dada in charge of West and North Africa.
Lubega stressed the importance of this development, noting that Africa, despite being home to 18% of the world's population, receives only 1% of global funding leaving the continent's vast potential in technology largely untapped.
Meanwhile, Tosin Faniro-Dada maintained that Africa is experiencing a rise in entrepreneurship, demonstrating increased innovation and ambition across the continent.
“Our entrepreneurs are driven by the ambition to find solutions to the continent’s challenges. It is truly inspiring and I'm thrilled to be able to support them thanks to the unique model we've developed at Breega,” he concluded.
