• P1 Ventures, an early-stage Pan-African VC,  has closed a USD 50 million institutional fund. 
• The venture capital firm aims to break traditional funding barriers and distribute its funds widely despite conventional investment trends.
• With the funding, P1 aims to expand its vision in investing in ventures that are ‘built in Africa for the World.’ 

P1 Ventures, an early-stage Pan-African VC,  has closed a USD 50 million institutional fund. This is with LPs and advisors from global VC including World Bank’s IFC and Index Ventures.

P1 Ventures is attempting to break barriers and forgo conventional VC trends in Africa. As the venture capital firm’s aim is to widely distribute its funds to a variety of entrepreneurial endeavors. 

P1 Ventures

P1 Ventures is a contrarian Pan-African venture capital firm with a focus on partnering with tech entrepreneurs at the early stage through value added capital. The VC uses AI to match local expertise to deep market data, spot high growth enterprises, track trends and identify talent. Thus, using this technology, it aims to identify and expand into key markets like Francophone Africa. 

The new funds come amidst a decrease in African venture capital. As well as, the  retreat of foreign investors to more guaranteed investments in established African hubs such as Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and South Africa. 

To counter this, P1 is aiming to focus on the next generation of bold African entrepreneurs that possess unique ideas alongside capital efficiency, high-growth and category-defining business. 

“A new generation of visionary African founders is emerging, creating opportunities across the continent and beyond. Africa VC is fast becoming an asset class that globally minded investors cannot afford to ignore.” 

Bernard Dalle, Senior Advisor at P1 Ventures

Untapped Potential

The VC argues that Africa has an untapped potential over more developed markets. In more developed economies, factors such as job protection laws, legacy regulations and existing infrastructure can hinder the adoption of new technologies.  In contrast, emerging economies such as Africa experience faster adoption driven by necessity and fewer structural barriers. This is because people need these new solutions to tackle the obstacles they face on a daily basis.

For instance, in fintech Africa is prosperous because people use mobile phones instead of traditional banking systems. Additionally, AI is continuing to address the continents’ productivity and skills gaps. AI also offers an opportunity for sectors such as hospitality and healthcare to be more efficient and affordable.

“From Dakar to Nairobi, Cairo to Cape Town, we’re seeing founders combining local insights with global ambition. These entrepreneurs are not just solving Africa’s problems – they’re creating models that the rest of the world can learn from.”

Mika Hajjar, Managing Partner at P1 Ventures

With the funding, P1 aims to expand its vision in investing in ventures that are ‘Built in Africa for the World.’ Furthermore, the venture capital’s goal is to leverage the continent’s innovation. In addition to using AI’s ability to transcend borders and sectors to export these innovations globally. Thus, while fintech is largely its focus, the VC aims to use this fund to expand into artificial intelligence. 

In pursuit of this goal, its portfolio includes Morocco’s Nuitee, AI powered hotel booking platform and Egypt’s Gameball, a gamified loyalty engagement platform. It also includes South Africa’s Salus, a one-click software deployment solution and Egypt’s Stakpak,an AI copilot for non-DevOps engineers. 

P1 Ventures ultimately aims that as a variety of innovations take hold and the ecosystem evolves so does the opportunity for more innovation.