The firm announced the first close of the fund with $20 million committed by notable investors including the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Visa Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Symbiotics.
Since 2013, Seedstars has supported over 90 emerging market venture ecosystems, seeing firsthand how the founder talent pool has matured with 2,070 VC-backed startups in 2021 in their core markets versus just over 560 in 2017 (Source: GPCA).
Seedstars will leverage this progress and invest in 100 pre-seed and seed stage companies across Asia, Africa, MENA, and LATAM in the next 3 years. Investments will be focused on companies building for the future of finance, commerce, health, work and education, with follow-on investments up to Series A.
The predecessor fund invested in 81 companies in over 30 countries, with category-leading investments in all regions including Dastgyr (Pakistan, backers include Veon and SOSV), Foodics (MENA, backers include Sequoia and Prosus), MyRobin (Indonesia, backers include Accion Venture Lab and Antler), OlaClick (LATAM, backers include Meta and Google/Gradient) and Omnibiz (Nigeria, backers include Musha Ventures and LoftyInc Capital), among others.