Janngo Capital is one of the few female-founded, owned and led venture capital and private equity firms. Janngo sees an investment opportunity in addressing Africa’s gender funding gap by making long-term commitments to back female-founded and female-led startups.
The four-year-old venture capital firm need not invest in only female-founded and female-led teams, though it plans to invest up to 50% of the new fund in startups founded, co-founded or benefiting women, it is more concerned with seeking a “gender-equal” approach.
According to Bâ, the firm’s founder and executive chair – “The fund’s current portfolio is 56% female-founded and led. According to her, being a female-founded, female-owned and female-led fund manager means “gender equality is both a moral case and a business case as the $42 billion funding gap for women entrepreneurs in Africa generates a $300 billion missed opportunity GDP-wise.”
Janngo Capital
Fatouma Bâ is the former managing director at the Nigerian Jumia office and co-founder of its Ivorian office. She is invariably a veteran in Africa’s tech space. Bâ announced that her firm Janngo Capital was raising a €60 million fund (~$63 million) in 2019. The firm is looking to “invest 50% of its proceeds in companies founded, co-founded, or benefiting women,” Janngo received €15 million from European Investment Bank (EIB) as an anchor investor and planned to close the fund the following year.
The firm just announced her first close having received €10.5 million from anchor investors, the African Development Bank Group (AfDB)last December. Thereafter, other limited partners such as Proparco, Burda Principal Investments (BPI), Muller Medien and an ex-KKR partner came on board, dropping €34 million in total capital commitments.
The firm, in a statement, said its “Janngo Capital Startup Fund plans to invest in startups that enable Africans to improve their access to essential goods and services and African small and medium businesses to improve their access to market and capital — and create sustainable jobs at scale, with a focus on women and youth.”
World Economic Forum of 19th August 2022, reports that women make better entrepreneurs than men — about 58% of Africa’s self-employed population are women and they contribute around 13% of the continent’s GDP). However, they face a significant funding gap of about $42 billion and last year, women-only founders received less than 1% of the nearly $5 billion raised by African startups.
On this premise, Janngo capital aims to bridge this gender disparity by maximizing the potential in growing women entrepreneurs in Africa.
