The BFA Global Catalyst Fund has raised $8.6 million from its $40 million goal for African climate companies. FSDAi, the Cisco Foundation,
USAID Prosper Africa and IT businessman Andrew Bredenkamp contributed to this fundraising round.
The Catalyst Fund invests money in Africa’s startups working on agtech, insurtech, climate fintech, fishery management, food systems, cold chain transportation, waste management, and water resource management.
After casting a wide net, the pan-African fund is most interested in pre-seed companies. Since then, it has helped ten startups from six countries, including Egypt, Senegal, and Morocco.
Read also: The Catalyst Fund invests $8.6 million in African enterprises
The Catalyst Fund wants to put money into 20 companies this year and 40 companies in the future. The Catalyst Fund gives pre-seed firms $200,000, seed firms $500,000, and series A companies $1.5 million.
Maelis Carraro, managing partner of the Catalyst Fund, described how they work:
Overall, giving each company $2.2 million makes sense because we are coming in early to get other investors interested. Our “pre-seed” is a simple deal for future equity (SAFE).
Carraro also pointed out that pre-seed startups get full support, which includes an extra $100,000 for “dedicated technical support from a team of experts and operators across all the functions that a startup needs.”
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Venture capital accelerator Catalyst Fund
Catalyst Fund began in 2016 as a pre-seed accelerator to help entrepreneurs get money, talent, and entry to the market. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office worked with them on philanthropic projects.
Catalyst Fund was an accelerator that helped 61 startups in 15 developing countries, such as Turaco, Wasoko, Cowrywise, and FarMart in India. The fund changed from an incubator to a venture capital fund last year.
Carraro says that the goal of this move is to strengthen the loyalty of the founders. She went on to say:
We made this change because we wanted to help founders for a long time, unlike most grant programmes, which only run for six months and then stop. We saw that people always needed money and help.
The Catalyst Fund is one of the new types of funding pools in Africa that are focused on climate change. It thinks that every part of the economy needs to change to deal with climate change, so it has a wide-ranging plan.
