DisrupTech Ventures has recently announced it will allocate funding estimated at a range from US$4 to US$5m in four new Egyptian fintech startups.
Mohamed Okasha, Managing Partner at DisrupTech Ventures, has said that the fund requires the availability of a set of criteria in the startups, including the presence of previous experiences of the founders and their ability to persuade investors and develop creative ideas that represent an added value to the market, Okasha explained.
The number of start-up companies in which the fund has invested so far has reached 14, and it plans to reach 28 during the next stage, according to Okasha, adding that DisrupTech succeeded during the last stage in exiting one company, Fatora.
He added that DisrupTech’s most recent investment was in the artificial intelligence technology company WideBot, which operates in the local and Saudi markets and is one of the approved partners of Meta for social media applications.
Okasha added that the size of the fund’s portfolio is currently estimated at about $36m, compared to $25m in February 2022.
The list of shareholders in DisrupTech includes the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Proparco, the investment arm of the French Development Agency (AFD), at $5m each, in addition to the Enterprise Development Agency and the Manara Advance Fund, unlike other funds from the Gulf countries, South Africa and Madagascar.
He said that 40% of the fund’s volume of funds has been invested in two types of startups, the first of which is fintech companies and others that are fintech enabled, which focus on developing and building financial technology platforms to serve other sectors such as agriculture and health.
He said that the term for the fund’s investment in one startup ranges from five to seven years, and exit is based on the appropriate investment opportunity and the value proposition.
DisrupTech aims to achieve three to four times the ROI within ten years, which is the life of the fund, indicating that the fund invests in return for acquiring a minority stake ranging between 5 to 10 per cent.
If you see something out of place or would like to contribute to this story, check out our Ethics and Policy section.
