AfricaTrustGroup – INVESTING IN AFRICA’S WOMEN

Who we are

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

Our unique capabilities are highlighted in a 3-pronged approach:

Early stage gender-lens funding
Entrepreneur development and acceleration
Business research and advisory

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. This is in spite of the fact that it has been found that female-owned businesses consistently out-survive male-owned businesses in many industries.

Africa trust group are the fund managers for:

The ZAR100m Enygma Ventures Fund focused on investing in majority women owned businesses in SADC
The ZAR20m 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

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

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
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