LoftyInc: How A Prolific Local Tech Funder Looks To Crack An Uncertain 2023

One of the important themes captured in the just-released Venture Investments In Africa Report (2022) by WeeTracker - the latest in our annual series offering unvarnished data, an enlightening overview of emerging trends and opportunities in the African Startup and Venture Capital (VC) investors in African tech funding - is the rising prominence of local funders.

Last year, USD 3.6 B in venture capital was ploughed into African startups across 506 deals closed by 1000+ local and global VC firms and Angels, with investors increasingly keen on early-stage deals given that pre-seed and seed rounds particularly spiked.

And this is not unconnected to the emergence of prolific local funders, portrayed by data which shows that 8 of the 10 most active VC firms in the local tech scene in 2022 are African; quite remarkable given the historical patterns that show huge dependence on foreign capital. And today, LoftyInc Capital is one of the leading local funders backing African startups.

LoftyInc operates three funds that have deployed over USD 22 M into more than 150 African startups, including unicorns such as Flutterwave and Andela. In November last year, the firm announced that coming off its first unicorn exit via LoftyInc Afropreneurs Fund 2 (LAF2) investment in Flutterwave, the newly-launched LAF3 USD 10 M fund closed 40 percent oversubscribed at USD 14.2 M, which is well into deployment across dozens of deals.