Partech Africa is the Africa-focused fund of Partech Partners, a Paris-headquartered international venture capital firm. Launched in 2018 with a $125 million close - at the time the largest Africa-focused VC fund ever raised - Partech Africa signalled that major international investment firms were beginning to treat the continent as a serious venture capital market rather than a development aid destination. The fund invested in several Kenyan companies, including Twiga Foods and other Silicon Savannah startups.
The fund was led by Tidjane Deme and Cyril Collon, partners with deep experience in African technology markets. Their investment thesis focused on technology companies with pan-African potential - startups that could demonstrate traction in one African market and expand across the continent. The fund targeted Series A and growth-stage companies, typically investing $1 million to $10 million, and took an active approach to portfolio management with a presence in Nairobi, Lagos, and Dakar.
Partech Africa's $125 million fund size was significant in context. In 2018, total venture capital investment across the entire African continent was approximately $1.1 billion - meaning Partech's single fund represented more than 10 percent of the continent's total VC activity. The fund attracted institutional investors including the European Investment Bank, IFC, and several European development finance institutions, alongside private investors. The successful fundraise demonstrated that Africa-focused venture capital could be packaged and sold to sophisticated institutional investors.
The fund's investment in Twiga Foods was one of its highest-profile Kenyan bets. Partech participated in Twiga's Series B alongside Goldman Sachs and other investors, backing the thesis that technology could transform agricultural distribution in Africa. Twiga's subsequent challenges - operational difficulties, layoffs, founder transition - tested the fund's conviction and portfolio management capabilities. Across its broader African portfolio, Partech invested in fintech, logistics, e-commerce, and healthtech companies.
Partech Africa's presence in the Kenyan ecosystem represented the internationalisation of African venture capital. While earlier funds like Savannah Fund were started by individuals with personal connections to East Africa, Partech was a large institutional firm applying its global investment framework to African markets. This brought advantages - larger cheque sizes, international networks, governance expertise - and potential disadvantages - less patience for the operational realities of African markets, return expectations calibrated to global benchmarks, and investment decision-making processes influenced by partners in Paris rather than Nairobi.
The fund raised a second, larger vehicle - Partech Africa II - further cementing Africa as a permanent allocation in Partech's global investment strategy. For Kenyan founders, Partech's involvement expanded the pool of available growth capital and provided access to a global investor network that connected African companies to European and American markets.
See Also
Sources
- Bright, Jake. "Partech Closes $125M Africa Fund, the Largest VC Fund for the Continent." TechCrunch, 2018.
- Adegoke, Yinka. "Partech Africa and the Internationalisation of African VC." Rest of World, 2020.
- Jackson, Tom. "Partech Africa's Portfolio Strategy for the Continent." Disrupt Africa, 2019.