Pan-African seed-focused venture capital (VC) firm P1 Ventures has completed the first US$25 million close of its second fund.
Founded in 2020, P1 Ventures is 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 in areas like fintech, e-commerce, healthtech, SaaS and AI.
Since launch, P1 Ventures has invested in 29 early-stage companies across 10 countries including Money Fellows in Egypt, Reliance Health in Nigeria and Yassir in Algeria. Such is the success of P1 Ventures’ focused, early-stage portfolio construction that for every US$1 invested, P1 Ventures’ companies have gone on to raise 35x more follow-on capital, on average. The new fund will build on the success of the first fund as well as the huge opportunity in Africa’s tech sector.
“As far I know, I’m the first Mauritanian who’s ever launched a fund. Coming from a relatively small economy inspires us at P1 Ventures to go off the beaten path and back the underdogs. We love ambitious African founders that build products and services addressing a regional, if not global, customer base. Combining our deep local knowledge, our strong data orientation and our experience as investors, we can identify unique opportunities and help entrepreneurs become global winners,” said founder and general partner Mikael Hajjar.
