Seedstars, a seed-stage venture fund dedicated to emerging and frontier markets, has supported over 90 emerging market venture ecosystems, and with this second emerging market seed stage fund, the venture fund will leverage this progress and invest in 100 pre-seed and seed-stage companies across Asia, Africa, MENA, and LATAM in the next 3 years. Investments will be focused on companies building for the future of finance, commerce, health, work, and education, with follow-on investments up to Series A.
The predecessor fund invested in 81 companies in over 30 countries, with category-leading investments in all regions including Dastgyr (Pakistan, backers include Veon and SOSV), Foodics (MENA, backers include Sequoia and Prosus), MyRobin (Indonesia, backers include Accion Venture Lab and Antler), OlaClick (LATAM, backers include Meta and Google/Gradient) and Omnibiz (Nigeria, backers include Musha Ventures and LoftyInc Capital), among others.
Charlie Graham-Brown, Seedstars Partner, comments, “I have no doubt about the abundance of talented founders or the market opportunities, but the challenges can’t be ignored. Our strategy innovates on so many levels to mitigate risk, be it through our country diversification, portfolio construction strategy, value creation platform, or the blended finance structure. We have a unique recipe, an incredible team, and backers in place to build on the success of the first fund and level the playing field for tech entrepreneurs around the world.”
Seedstars’ focus on supporting scalable technology companies in emerging markets, solving major societal challenges like access to finance, health, or education, and working closely with entrepreneurs to scale their businesses means that the impact thesis is embedded in the investment thesis. The fund also includes a blended finance component with a first-loss tranche that provides downside protection for investments in the lowest-income markets.
Seedstars welcomes seed stage technology companies in emerging and frontier markets to contact them at investments@seedstars.com.
