Norrsken22 lays $110m out of $200m for African Tech Growth Fund
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Norrsken22 has secured $110 million out of its $200 million African Tech Growth Fund, in partnership with 30 unicorn founders and venture capital and private equity investors.
The tech growth platform plans to raise the remaining $90 million before year end, backed by the international network of tech founders.
A total $65 million in the first trache came from Flutterwave co-founder Olugbenga Agboola, Skype co-founder Niklas Zennström, iZettle co-founder Jacob de Geer, Delivery Hero co-founder Niklas Östberg, Mojang co-founder Carl Manneh; King co-founder Sebastian Knutsson, and Kobalt Music founder Willard Ahdritz.
The funding was led by Hans Otterling, partner at Northzone; Natali Kolbe, former global head of private equity at Actis; her colleague, Ngetha Waithaka; and Lexi Novitske, former managing partner at Acuity Ventures Platform.
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Growth challenges
Africa has challenges of shortage of growth and late-stage checks as most large deals are often financed by international venture capitalists while local investors focus on pre-seed to Series A rounds with micro to medium funds, according to Nairametrics.
Below are the comments of some of the contributors to the $110 million raised by Norrsken22:
Lexi Novitske
“Usually, founders, as they grow and want to scale, have to take time away from their business and spend it with Silicon Valley-based investors who they have to educate on the Africa growth story.
“These investors are coming with their capital, which is valuable, of course, but they’re not coming with the local knowledge to help those companies scale across the continent and that’s the missing middle that we’re looking to unlock with this fund.”
Ngetha Waithaka
“Beyond Series B rounds, Norrsken22 is willing to go beyond that stage as it looks to invest 40 per cent of its capital, about $80 million in Series A and B companies and the rest in follow-on rounds from Series C up until exit.
“In essence, the firm is planning to scale up 20 investments at an average ticket size of $10 million and may go as high as $16 million, including follow-on rounds in some portfolio companies.”
Natali Kolbe
“I think that reserve capital pool is really important because we do want to have the ability to support companies through their entire lifecycle.
“Innovation is uncertain, and it doesn’t happen overnight, so we want to be sure to be able to support the top winners in the company so they can be the champions in the tech ecosystem.”
About Norrsken22
Norrsken22 was founded in 2016 by Niklas Adalberth, one of the founders of Swedish fintech unicorn Klarna, to help entrepreneurs solve the world’s greatest challenges.
The foundation launched in 2019 operations in Kigali, Rwanda as a base for investing across East and Central Africa, and last year accepted 11 startups from the continent into the inaugural edition of the Norrsken Impact Accelerator.