About us
We are holistic early stage gender-lens investors committed to investing in Africa’s Women entrepreneurs.
Our mission is to drive economic growth and development on the African continent through investing in entrepreneurship development with the hope of contributing to the economic transformation of individuals, communities and regional economies.
What we do
- We bridge the gap between women entrepreneurs in Africa who struggle to access finance for scaling their businesses and investors struggling to build healthy pipelines of investible women entrepreneurs in Africa.
- We do this by providing early-stage African women entrepreneurs with the holistic support they need to become investor-ready and providing investors with end-to-end funds management and portfolio operations support.
We offer access to
Innovative financing
solutions
Women-enabling
platforms
Entrepreneur development & acceleration through partner platform
Context
Although Africa has the highest rates of female entrepreneurship in the world, the funding gap remains a barrier to achieving full potential.
Currently, women operate over 40% of SMEs in Africa, the African Development Bank has pitted the entire funding gender gap at $42 billion between men and women entrepreneurs.
African GDP could increase 10% by 2025 if the gendergap is narrowed
In Africa, women owned or led businesses received only 2% of funding from VCs (2018).
The average investment for female- or female co-founded companies is half that of male-founded companies.
Almost half (45.8%) of women’s business closure reasons are directly attributed to financial reasons.
Opportunity
Research shows that female-owned businesses consistently out-survive male-owned businesses in many industries. Research has shown that women founded and co-founded companies:
- Grow faster, use money more efficiently, and generate more profit.
- Have 22% lower turnover rates
- Generate more innovation
- Deliver higher revenue-more than 2X as much per dollar invested
- Deliver 35% more ROI when given access to the right capital, networks and partnerships
Our Approach
Our unique capabilities are highlighted in a 3-pronged approach:
1. Early stage gender-lens funding
Research has shown that the biggest obstacle women face when starting and growing any business is access to funding and ability to raise capital. The IFC reports an approximate $320 billion dollar gap in financing for women and that women-owned businesses appear restricted in their growth paths and are therefore skewed towards smaller firms.
We are the fund managers for:
- Enygma Ventures Fund: focused on investing in early stage majority women owned businesses in SADC.
- Shift Fund focused on investing in entrepreneurs and innovators in Africa creating solutions that will help redefine our post-pandemic world.
- The Empress Fund: An angel syndicate fund focused on innovative financing solutions for women-owned and women-enabling businesses in SADC in the agri-processing, energy and climate sectors.
2. Entrepreneur development and acceleration
Leaders set the tone, pace and culture of an organisation. Therefore, ensuring that the entrepreneur is developing both their personal leadership capacity and business skills is cardinal to creating a growing enterprise that can scale and remain relevant in dynamic market environments.
Our online platform Startupcircles.ai helps entrepreneurs to build commercially viable businesses and provides them guidance and access to a network of like-minded entrepreneurs and investors. The platform makes the startup journey more enjoyable and less lonely for entrepreneurs.
Visit our online Startup School here: StartupCircles.ai
3. Business research and advisory
In this information economy it is easy for investors, policy makers and other key stakeholders looking to invest in entrepreneurship in Africa to get lost in the multitude of information and data. ATG provides research and advisory services in the following areas:
- Gender-lens investing
- Funds development and management
- Entrepreneurship eco-system development
ATG has served clients across Africa, Europe and North America. Projects have included strategy development for gender-lens VC funds, debt funds, gender bonds and eco-system development in various parts of the continent.Download a copy of latest Gender-lens investing project ATG worked on in collaboration with MEDA covering South, East, West and North Africa research here: Download Report
Our Funds
Enygma Fund
USD 10m Seed VC Fund
Women entrepreneur focused
SADC Region
US Based Investors
Ticket: >$100k – 1m
More information
Website
Shift Fund
USD 1m Pre-seed VC Fund
Post-covid Innovation
Africa Wide
US Based Investors
Ticket: >$25k – 100k
More information
Website
Empress Fund
USD 50k Innovative Financing Fund
Women entrepreneur focused
SADC Region
African Syndicate
Ticket: $5k – $50k
More information
Website
Our team
CORE TEAM
Lelemba Phiri
Principal and Fund Manager
Gender, development finance, angel investing, public & private sector experience, marketing. PhD Candidate
Mary-Ann De Wet
Chief Financial Officer
Finance & strategy, modelling and investments, M & As, tax, compliance and due diligence, regulation MCom. International Tax
Trish Nelson
Chief Compliance Officer
Commercial legal advisor, attorney of the high court, contracts law, compliance management, mediator, disputes resolution. LLB
Kaleo Maoka
Portfolio
Manager
Portfolio & project management, clients & contracts management, key stakeholder relations, marketing MBA (GIBS)
SUPPORT
Sandras Phiri
Entrepreneur Education
MBA
Bronwyn Felix
Project Management
Dip.PM
Jade September
Social Media
BA English
Glenn Nelson
Financial Models
CA(SA)
ADVISORS
Danai Masandu
VC and PE. Investments Relations, Goodwell VC
Keith Davies
Innovative Finance and Strategy. CFO, AL Ventures
Faith Mukutu
Risk and Commercial Strategy, CFO, Zambeef PLC. Chairperson & Investor
Abigail Chimuka
Legal and Compliance, Partner, Abigail and Chama. Legal Counsel & Investor
Our Stories
New Female Focused VC Fund
Fundraising Roadshow – Angola
Fundraising Roadshow – Egypt
Gender lens angel investment fund
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