Early-stage venture fund and seed accelerator 500 Global has made 156 investments in Africa since 2012, and is now planning a beefed up physical presence on the continent to better support its portfolio.
Launched in 2010 in the United States (US) as 500 Startups, 500 Global ran its first accelerator in Silicon Valley in 2011 and has since expanded globally, running programmes and making early-stage investments all over the world.
It was one of the first US venture capital firms to launch regional funds, which it has done in Latin America, South Asia, South Korea, and MENA. Its first African investments were made in Egypt in 2012 via the latter vehicle, and since then 500 Global, which the firm is now known as after a 2021 rebrand, has built a portfolio of 156 ventures across the continent.
This portfolio includes investments in the likes of Chipper Cash, MaxAB, Triply, Aella Credit, Stitch, SweepSouth, Breadfast, NowPay and Moneyfellows. Mareme Dieng, Africa lead at 500 Global, told the latest episode of “The month in VC”, Disrupt Africa’s regular podcast on the African venture capital space, that aside from the North African investments via its MENA fund, most of 500’s Sub-Saharan African investments have been made through its global fund.
“That’s because Sub-Saharan Africa was still within what we would call our opportunistic markets,” said Dieng, who joined 500 in 2021 from Draper University Ventures.
The firm’s approach to Africa is, however, evolving, and going forward will more greatly resemble its approach to Egypt, where it has built out a dedicated local team.
“One of the things that is important for us is to build out local teams to really be able to think very differently about how we provide support to our founders, especially because we invest so early and take such risky bets. So the same as for other regions, we are now building a local team for the continent to ensure that we can provide that similar support,” Dieng said.
“We have a quite significant portfolio across the continent today, but it’s a less-known fact because I think we have been a lot less vocal about some of the investments that we have made. But we’re very excited about the potential that the continent holds today, and we feel very strongly about the importance of being able to have local support for these companies.”
