Sherpa Ventures brings Singapore’s startup expertise and African startup founders together in a new $1m pre-seed fund

Sherpa Ventures announces the launch of its debut fund dedicated to investing in pre-seed tech startups in Africa. 

Founded by well-known operators in the African startup ecosystem, Sherpa Ventures, led by a Singaporean and African startup investment veteran Aaron Fu, ex-Uber Africa launcher Alastair Curtis and ex-IROKO, the Netflix of Africa, CCO Nikhil Patel, is pairing cutting edge industry expertise, global context and capital from investors in Singapore and on-the-ground understanding, local business building experience, networks and capital from successful startup founders and operators in Africa. 

Taking a fresh “operators backing operators” hands on and collaborative approach to investing in and supporting industry transforming startups who are building the digital infrastructure that will enable businesses and livelihoods to thrive. The team has a proven track record of investing in, operating and scaling category defining startups like Uber and iROKO through 20+ countries on the continent. 

“Being true partners in the trenches is in our DNA, not only is the team led by founders of, operators of and investors in startups in Africa but we’re also backed by capital and expertise from founders of class-leading African growth stage startups like Goldman Sachs backed Twiga, GoJek backed SafeBoda and Crystal Stream backed Lori as well as global leaders in building digital infrastructure based in Singapore,” said Nikhil Patel. 

Africa is rapidly ascending as a key node in the global startup ecosystem, in 2020 the region has seen a surge in significant exits including the $500m acquisition of Sendwave by WorldRemit in August and the $200m acquisition of Paystack by Stripe. To further power this rise on a continent bursting with youthful energy (the median age in Africa is 19.8), venture funding for startups in Africa doubled in 2019 to reach $2bn but with a bulk of this capital allocated to Series A to Growth stage startups many earlier stage startups continue to be capital constrained.

Sherpa Ventures’ first fund is positioned to leverage Africa’s rapid increase in exits and funding and will focus exclusively on working with still underserved pre-seed founders, delivering deep and bespoke support on their path to growth and exit. 

“More than a venture fund – we are a supportive and collaborative global community,” commented Aaron Fu on their unique approach and constellation of

LPs, “a community of capital, expertise and experience who have built and operated some of the strongest startups on the continent, Asia and across the world. We can’t wait to partner with extraordinary teams in the region, to realize the power of global expertise paired with one generation of startup operators in Africa investing in and sprinting alongside the next generation.” 

Leaders in the community of Sherpas in Singapore, Africa and across the world draw from their entrepreneurial, late stage investing, impact and corporate partnerships experience to support Sherpa Ventures’ founders and include Advisory board members: 

• Jean-Philbert Nsengimana, former Minister of Youth and ICT, Rwanda
• Kamal Bhattacharya, Engineer, Academic and ex-CIO of Safaricom
• Varun Mittal, Author and Co-Founder, Singapore Fintech Association
• Vishal Agarwal, Investor, Author and former MD, Africa Investments, GE
• Grant Brooke, Entrepreneur and Co-founder of Twiga 
• Lexi Novitske, Investor and Managing Partner of Acuity Ventures Sherpa Ventures’ 2 investments to date are: 
• Boost, an asset light retail distribution and working capital platform focused on MSMEs, launching in Ghana and South Africa 
• OnePipe, a unified platform that aggregates APIs for financial services and large institutions, launching in Nigeria 

“These extraordinary teams are not only building scalable but grounded businesses, they’re also catalyzing sustainable growth of businesses in their ecosystems, from empowering micro-merchants with the digital tools to supercharge their operations to enabling startups and corporates to rapidly build and connect to innovative new financial services. These audacious entrepreneurs are driving the next wave of economic inclusion and growth in Africa,” said Alastair Curtis on the impact the ventures Sherpa partners with are creating. 

Beyond expertise and capital, Sherpa Ventures also hopes to bring the startup ecosystems in Africa and ASEAN closer together, accelerating partnerships between startups in both regions like Singapore based FOMO Pay’s partnership with WAPI Pay in Kenya and Red Dot Payment’s partnership with Finserv Africa, on the potential of these partnerships, author of “Singapore – The Fintech Nation” Varun Mittal and advisor to the fund said, “Sherpa Ventures will be great platform for companies from ASEAN with aspirations to explore partnerships in Africa. They will be able to find perfect local companies that they could collaborate with or invest in to strengthen Global South South collaboration.”