Grindstone Ventures has today launched a $6.5m (R100 million) female-led African venture capital fund to fund South African technology startups who have completed, or are part, of its Grindstone Accelerator programme.
Grindstone Ventures is led by Catherine Young, Andrea Bohmert, Rapelang Rabana and Grace Legodi, an all-female team with exceptional depth of experience across value chain funding, and a proven track record in scaling startups. Venture capital firm, Knife Capital, is overseeing certain of the fund management elements. The fund will invest primarily in early-stage innovation driven and/or technology companies that are female-led, and acts as an early due-diligence mechanism for the new fund.
According to Catherine Young, Managing Partner at Grindstone Ventures: “Our aim is to provide superior returns to investors and to create sustainable yields over the long term. While the tech ecosystem deal space across Africa has shown exceptional growth over recent years, there remains a gap in the market for post-seed, pre-Series A funding across the continent. Our vision is to fill this gap and prepare these businesses for larger funding rounds, exponential growth and to ultimately exit.”
“Our secret sauce lies in our robust Grindstone Accelerator, which enables innovation-driven tech startups to access knowledge, networks, funding and markets. Typically an accelerator follows a fund, but Grindstone Ventures is turning this model on its head. Grindstone Ventures was launched as a result of the excellent pipeline of businesses emerging from Grindstone Accelerator, which provide investors with a de-risked opportunity for returns.”
Grindstone Ventures will target SMEs that have a sustainable impact and are able to create meaningful jobs. The fund will target between 30 and 50 early-stage companies that possess strong intellectual property, demonstrate high growth potential and have the ability to raise follow-on funding from credible funders in the ecosystem, or deliver sustainable cash yields over the long term.
The typical investment structure will be via a SAFE (simple agreement for future equity) to align speed of negotiation and execution with the investment stage.
Young said the fund received its first investment from the SA SME Fund.
“We were very excited about the vote of confidence the SA SME Fund’s investment showed in our vision for the fund, and our team. The SA SME Fund is known for its ability to spot and act on viable, exciting investment opportunities and as a first mover, we believe the confidence that they have shown will pave the road for other investors”, says Young.
