Index Ventures, a $4b worth investment fund with over 383 Investments in 244 companies, Index Ventures team today had its tour of Nairobi’s iHub and Nailab, met a number of startups from the city and as well did listen to a few pitches, in a move seen as set to open the city’s tech entrepreneurs to global investors.
Index Ventures invests in seed, early stage, late stage and as well does PE investments in the consumer internet and mobile, enterprise technologies sectors. The fund has investments in US, Europe, Israel and was recently on a Japan tour before Africa. The multi-stage international venture capital firm has invested in firm such as Dropbox, Etsy, Sonos, SoundCloud, Flipboard, King, BlaBlaCar, Squarespace, Just Eat, Lookout, Hortonworks, Nasty Gal, Pure Storage, Supercell, Criteo, Funding Circle and many others according to information from CrunchBase.
Some of the firms that pitched Index Ventures team include Symbiotic Media, Uhasibu, Mama Mikes, Sematime and a few others. TechMoran will do an updatd piece on the outcome of this pitches. However, we believe this is a great move for entreprenuers in the region.
Kenya’s CardPlanet Solutions are also building their company at 500 Startups. Google’s Eric Shimdt visit was also a positive move. KopoKopo also moved out of its shells and raised funds to fuel its growth internationally. There might not be an ecosystem to talk about at the moment but this is a positive indicator of not only firms raising funds but even getting networks to build living companies.
Good to have the @IndexVentures team with us at the @iHub today meeting startups pic.twitter.com/esg8VAsvCv
— Erik Hersman (@whiteafrican) February 23, 2015
Former senior director in the Office of the CEO, reporting to Steve Jobs, James Higa was also part of the Index Ventures team that visited Nairobi. James joined Index Ventures in 2012 as the firm’s first Mentor in Residence.