(Ecofin Agency) - After its first investments in 2018, Tofino capital decided to go a step further by launching a multi-sectoral fund. The investment vehicle will target startups in frontier markets such as Egypt and Nigeria.  

Early-stage investor Tofino Capital announced the first close, at US$5 million,  of its US$10 million investment fund set up for pre-seed and seed-stage investments in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. 

Through the investment vehicle, Tofino Capital plans to invest US$50,000 to 500,000 in the targeted firms. 

“The main thesis of the fund is to target large markets with hundreds of millions of people that have minimal access to venture capital. So that does not include China, India, Brazil, those kinds of big markets with a lot of venture capital. (...) What we’re talking about here is like Bangladesh, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Mexico, that’s our play — it’s these types of places where venture capital is basically under $5 per capita, and that’s what’s attracted a lot of interest to this next group of big markets,” explains Tofino co-founder, Eliot Pence.

Since its launch in 2018, Tofino has backed 11 companies. The idea to create an investment vehicle emerged in 2021 and was implemented months later. 

The vehicle will focus primarily on companies providing financial and logistics services. It will “probably do about 30 to 40 pre-seed and seed deals, and then less than five late-stage investments. (...) We think Africa’s next growth phase won’t be the kind of $1-42 billion Flutterwave and Andela types. It’ll be growing these mid-market companies of $200-$500 million profiles,” explains Elliot Pence. The final closing is expected by the end of 2022.  

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