Founders Factory Africa, an investment firm based in Johannesburg, South Africa, has announced a new partnership.
According to TechCrunch, the investment firm is teaming up with the Small Foundation to invest in 18 agritech startups.
Small Foundation, which is based in Dublin, Ireland, is a not-for-profit organization that focuses on the rural and agriculture sector in sub-Saharan Africa. The partnership involves the Small Foundation making a donation to the Founders Factory Africa, though how much money has actually changed hands is undisclosed, as of this writing.
“The partnership stands to make a significant impact across the continent by supporting agritech startups who can innovate and improve the delivery of a range of services to smallholder farmers and micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in the agricultural sector,” the investment firm said in a statement provided to TechCrunch.
Founders Factory Africa is the investment arm of the Founders Factory organization that has invested in more than 180 companies all over the world. The Africa arm is the fintech offshoot of the main company, and was founded in 2018. The Africa arm has partnered with Standard Bank — the largest bank on the continent — to offer some much-needed funds to such fintech startups as Bwala, LipaLater, MVXchange and OkHi.
It’s also partnered with the Netcare Group to invest in healthcare startups. Some of their past healthcare startup investments include RxAll, Redbird and Wellahealth.
For the burgeoning investment firm, these investments are just the beginning of the line. They plan on taking on several more startups and are going to continue to develop businesses throughout the African continent.
“We will build, scale and invest in 88 startups with current FFA investors (Standard Bank, Netcare, and Small Foundation) until 2024. We plan to continue to take on new investors and continue to work on the continent indefinitely,” said Alina Truhina, one-half of the partnership that founded Founders Factory Africa.
