Nigeria’s Athari Fund is to invest in between two and five local tech startups as it pilots its operations in the first half of next year.
The Athari Fund is an impact investment fund aimed at empowering African youths by investing in bright ideas that can generate measurable social and environmental impacts as well as financial returns.
Co-founder Ayobami Olufadeji told Disrupt Africa the fund will invest in startups in the education, agriculture, financial inclusion, health and nutrition, and community development spaces, and was currently accepting applications for its pilot.
“During the pilot phase we will not have our own incubator. However, we are developing partnerships with incubators and co-working spaces in Nigeria to ensure that the companies will have access to the synergies that come from being in an incubator,” Olufadeji said.
“The plan is to ensure that, for companies who need it, we’re able to support with access to such services for the first year, after which we will re-evaluate.”
The Athari Fund will work with the selected companies to define impact investing and help them understand how to identify, track, and report impact metrics.
“Our expertise is primarily in investment management and social sector enterprises. Between the founding team and our advisers we have extensive experience in impact investing, healthcare, education, risk assessment, venture capital, entrepreneurship, non-profits, agriculture, customer service, org management. We’re a well-rounded team with a strong network,” Olufadeji said.
Funds for investing in startups have been raised internally, amongst the founding team and some angel investors. Though Olufadeji said the fund has made a conscious decision not to limit itself by setting a price point for investments, it will focus on seed and early stage.
The Athari Fund plans to have identified between two and five “solid companies” by the first quarter of next year, and to have disbursed the investments by June 2017.
“We’ll keep this pilot class of our portfolio for one year, continue to take applications on a rolling basis, and make another round of investments in 2018,” Olufadeji said.
