With $3m funding pool, Pacer Ventures becomes ‘Investor-in-Residence’ for FI Africa startups

With $3m funding pool, Pacer Ventures becomes FI Investor-In-Residence as announced by Founder Institute (FI) recently. As part of the program, all startups that graduate the Founder Institute in Africa will be reviewed by Pacer Ventures for potential investment in their seed or pre-seed round of funding.

This development follows the announcement of Founder Institute as a strategic partner of Pacer
Ventures for African early-stage start-ups that are solving some of the most critical problems on the continent. Pacer VC purpose is aligned with FI’s mission to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build impactful, technology-enabled companies worldwide.

Also Read: Pacer Ventures partners FI, launches a $3m fund for early-stage African startups

FI is quickly becoming the gold standard for pre-seed acceleration in Africa; says Ryan Micheletti, Head of Global Operations for the Founder Institute. ” We are excited to strengthen our leadership position by partnering with Pacer Ventures to foster investment in FI Alumni all across the Continent.”

FI has an Alumni strength of 100+ companies tackling various challenges across the continent and this is bound to grow with FI expanded footprint in Africa and Pacer move to increase access to early-stage funding. Managing Partner of Pacer Ventures, Gbemi Akande, sees value in formalising the partnership with the Silicon Valley-based program. Our partnership is in line with what Pacer VC was set up to accomplish. By partnering with Founder Institute, we at Pacer VC will accelerate our mission of supporting early-stage companies. It is a win-win and we look forward to a mutually beneficial collaboration with FI.

Pacer Ventures was one of a handful of new funds selected to pitch to a global gathering of limited partners from around the world at the VC Lab Venture Forum, which has also led to increased interest from LPs around the world.

While reinforcing Pacer Ventures’ commitment to supporting startups from the Founder Insitute Accelerator Programme, Geoffrey Weli-Wosu, General Partner at Pacer Ventures, said, Founder Institute stands out as one of the top pre-seed accelerators across the African continent. Pacer Ventures will continue to leverage its strategic partnership with Founder Institute chapters throughout Africa to identify and recommend winning teams with scalable solutions that meet market needs.

Similarly, Pacer Ventures has partnered with techbuild.africa to provide marketing and promotional support for FI portfolio companies across Africa.

General Partner at Pacer Ventures and FI Regional Director, Chukwuemeka Fred Agbata stated,
Africa faces many challenges, but within every challenge lies opportunity and young people are leveraging technology to solve these problems across the Continent. It is our duty to inspire and fund the entrepreneurs who are building valuable solutions to our most pressing problems. Africa is the future, and investors and LPs are now becoming aware of this, 

Currently, the Founder Institute prides itself as the world largest pre-seed startup accelerator. Since 2009, we have helped over 4,500 entrepreneurs get the focus and support needed to build a business that matters. Based in Silicon Valley with chapters across 90 countries, the Founder Institute mission is to empower communities of talented and motivated people to build impactful technology companies worldwide.

Pacer Ventures has a strategic relationship with Founder Institute, the world premier pre-seed startup accelerator, to provide investment thesis support, structure, templates, tools, deal flow, potential seed, and mentorship support across all segments of the funding operation for African startups. Pacer Ventures becomes FI Investor-In-Residence to further the African Accelerator goals of helping to build technology companies in Africa.

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