Ingressive Capital unveils $10million fund for high-growth tech startups
Summary
At the time, ticket sizes were capped at $100,000.Ingressives offer to potential portfolio companies hinges on providing support on financials, business development, and access to international networks of investors for later-stage funding. But they dont intend to stand over their shoulders to micromanage day-to-day internal operations.COVID-19 has imposed limitations on the extent to which founders and investors can interact, confining many deals to video conferencing calls. Thats the job of Horgan-Famodus investment committee and clique of fund advisors, which includes Seth Levine, managing director of Foundry Group; Kai Bond, partner of Courtside Ventures; Maurice Werdegar, president and CEO of Western Technology Investments.All three investors and their firms are based in the United States, but the majority of Ingressives LPs are Nigerian companies, Famodu says.From conversations with foreign institutional investors, her sense is that there is a level of confidence about the African market despite the pandemic-induced economic turbulence in developed economies.In any case, economic downturns dont turn out to be a death knell for innovation, she argues, noting that Ingressive was founded on the margins of the latest two-year recession in Nigeria.Famodu points to Safaricom, the Kenyan telco founded in 1993 in the middle of a historic economic crisis triggered by drastic government revenue shortfall and rising inflation that hit 100% in August of that year. The company would go on to birth MPesa in 2007, growing it through the Great Recession to now become the continents most used mobile money service.It might as well be an opportune moment for firms to double down and commit more towards increasing Africas innovation. The pandemic has revealed infrastructural deficiencies in key sectors, ranging from transportation and commerce to healthcare and education.But those gaps scream for solutions and Ingressive, like a number of other firms, is actively inviting interested parties to shoot their carefully considered high-growth shots.Get the best African tech newsletters in your inbox