The African technology fund will be funded by the Luxembourg and Cote d’Ivoire governments.
Both Governments will invest EUR10 million in Bamboo Capital Partners’ BLOC Smart Africa, towards a EUR100 million technology impact fund.
July last year during the United Nation High Level Political Forum, Cote d’Ivoire announced to contribute EUR 5 million to the African technology fund.
As part of the Smart Africa Alliance, a pan-African project to accelerate sustainable socioeconomic development by investing in underserved African communities.
However, the fund will be used to invest in high-growth potential start-ups to grow exponentially throughout the continent.
Also, the investments from the Governments of Luxembourg and Côte d’Ivoire will be funded by BLOC Smart Africa’s first loss tranche.
This will cover senior tranches of institutional investor financing.
And provides them with a risk-adjusted market-based return that satisfies their fiduciary criteria.
“We have a critical funding gap across Africa,” said Lacina Koné, Smart Africa’s director general.
“The BLOC Smart Africa Fund, which is the first of its kind to help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
In addition, this will go a long way in bridging the financing gap between the seed and growth phases for hundreds of businesses.
In particular, start-ups in Africa, emerging and frontier markets.”
According to Jean-Philippe De Schrevel, Bamboo Capital Partners’ founder and managing director;
“the alliance with the governments of Côte d’Ivoire and Luxembourg would play a crucial role in de-risking the fund’s senior tranches”.
Also, this initiative will attract investors and taking Africa one step closer to becoming a single digital economy.
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