Catalyst Fund Makes USD 2 M Investment Into Ten African Startups

Pre-seed venture capital (VC) fund and accelerator Catalyst Fund has announced a USD 2 M investment into 10 startups building solutions to improve the resilience of climate-vulnerable communities in Africa. The fund is aimed at supporting early-stage founders to develop technology that will make Africa more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Each of the 10 startups selected for this cohort will be offered USD 100 K of equity investments as well as USD 100 K of hands-on venture-building support. They will join Catalyst Fund’s existing portfolio of 61 startups across emerging markets and receive capital, bespoke and expert-led venture-building support, and direct connections with investors, corporate innovators and talent networks that can help them scale. 

Three of the selected companies are from Nigeria, namely cloud-native Emergency Medical Services (EMS) platform Eight Medical, sustainable agriculture startup Farmz2U, and insurtech platform PaddyCover. Two are from Kenya, as food supply chain startup Farm to Feed and Direct Air Capture (DAC) company Octavia Carbon, and another two from Egypt, tech-enabled waste collection solution Bekia and precision agri-tech startup VAIS. Ugandan mobile layaway system Agro Supply, Senegalese insurtech platform Assuraf, and agroforestry startup Sand to Green complete the cohort.