Madica, a program of Flourish Ventures, increases pre-seed investment in Africa

medicinean investment program launched by US investor Flourish Ventures to support start-ups in Africa planning to speculate in as much as 10 ventures by the tip of the yr, increasing funding efforts after closing three initial deals.

Madica revealed the plans to TechCrunch, pointing to accelerated investments in the approaching yr because it plans to create as much as 30 startups by the tip of the three-year program that began in the center of last yr, after launching in late 2022.

It was announced today that the primary investors of the program include, amongst others: Kola MarketB2B platform founded by Marie-Reine Seshie to assist SMEs increase sales and simplify their business operations. There are others GoBEBAKenyan on-demand home goods retailer founded by Lesley Mbogo AND Peter Ndiang’uiAND Newform Foods (formerly Mzansi Meat) South African cultured meat start-up founded by Brett Thompson AND Tasneem Karodii.

More people will join the program as Madica explores potential deals in emerging markets equivalent to Tunisia, Morocco, Uganda, DRC, Rwanda and Ethiopia. This is in line with its plan to achieve startups across sectors and markets, in addition to those led by underrepresented and underfunded founders. Madica looks beyond fintechs, Africa’s best-funded sector, and is desperate to support startups founded by female founders (or those with at the very least one female founder), a demographic that continues to receive modest VC funding.

“I consider that given the number of challenges that exist across the continent, it’s the entrepreneurs operating in these markets who understand the context and have experience with these issues which might be best placed to unravel these challenges. The goal of the Madica program is to prove and show you can find founders who construct good businesses, but don’t fit into the standard, homogeneous group,” he said. Emmanuel AdegboyeMadika’s boss.

Madica makes an upfront investment of $200,000 once a enterprise is accepted into the program, which lasts as much as 18 months and in addition includes tailored practical support and mentoring. It allocated $6 million to speculate in a scalable technology-based business and the identical amount to implement the primary phase of the program, which is a rolling entry. The program doesn’t apply standard investment conditions, which makes each transaction unique.

“Our programs are very personalized, but also somewhat structured because founders join the program at different times. The personalized part of the program is extremely important because we want to understand what they need and how we can best support them,” Adegboye said.

“But we also recognize that at any given time we will have at least a few companies that we are working with on the program, so we have several parts of the program that are very structured and cover each company in the portfolio,” he said.

Adegboye hopes that because the program catalyzes pre-seed investments across Africa’s diverse ecosystems, Madica can attract more capital to the continent and ultimately function a benchmark for global VCs trying to scale in the market.

“Depending on how the program goes, there is a possibility that we could double it or make it available to other partners who will join us and accelerate this mission.”