Pan-African venture capital firm, P1 Ventures, has reached the first close of its second fund at $25 million, totaling $50 million raised, to invest in early-stage African startups.
The African-Focused VC firm secured this capital from some of Africa’s industrial conglomerates, private companies, funds, and general partners of global funds based in the U.S and Europe.
P1 Ventures founder and general partner Mikael Hajjar disclosed that the company expects to reach a final close early next year.
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The funds raised will back African startups serving in e-commerce, Fintech, Health tech, Insurtech, SaaS, and AI Industries.
While this second fund will still focus on these sectors, the firm is adding Al to the mix. Its first investment in this category is Zambian startup Nkoloso.ai, which gathers data and keeps track of vast tracts of agricultural land using satellite imagery and Al.
It’s also one of two Al startups and five portfolio companies the Dubai-based venture capital firm has backed from its second fund.
Speaking on the firm’s investment in an AI firm, P1 ventures general partner Hajjar said,
“We believe that Al will be Africa’s next big leapfrog opportunity. So when you think how fintech transformed the continent and allowed it to disrupt the banking sector, we believe Al will do the same with sectors like retail, healthcare, and the creative economy.
“What we see beautiful in Al is the ability to export. As you know, single market and currency risk are the main risks in investing in Africa. The beauty of Al is that you have export-first businesses.”
Notably, P1 Ventures has also identified an opportunity for the pan-African region to use Al to drive legacy infrastructure, particularly in antiquated sectors such as agriculture and FMCG retail.
Just as mobile money in Africa enabled debit and credit card infrastructure, the Venture fim believes Al can build high-fidelity data and enhance the time-to-value proposition to transform sectors.
Founded in 2020 by Mikael Hajjar and Hisham Halbouny, P1 Ventures describes itself as a high-conviction investor that intentionally focuses on a small number of exceptional African founders and companies building transformational software businesses with regional and global potential.
Since its launch, the company has invested in 29 early-stage companies across 10 countries including Money Fellows in Egypt, and Reliance Health in Nigeria where P1 has a presence.
The firm’s inaugural investment was in Yassir in Algeria, a super-app operating in Francophone Africa.
As a venture capital firm, P1 ventures value creation strategy hinges on active engagement with management. It is committed to supporting key sales and partnering activities of each core portfolio company.
The VC firm exits its positions through a combination of M&A, secondary, direct offerings, and traditional IPOs.