Rali cap, a newly renamed venture capital firm, has raised the first $20 million of a $30 million fund to invest in B2B and API-first fintech firms in Africa and other emerging markets.
Hayden Simmons co-founded Rally Cap Ventures, a worldwide network of fintech angels investing in and alongside an exclusive portfolio of early-stage developing market funds, with Kyane Kassiri, whom he met while working for VC firm Lateral Capital.
Rally Cap has been renamed Rali cap, owing to a “claimed misunderstanding” in the market caused by another fund, according to Simmons.
Meanwhile, the cooperative has grown into a full-fledged fund, focusing on B2B and API-first fintech firms in Africa, Latin America, and South Asia at the pre-seed and seed stages and having made hundreds of African investments. Bain, Breyer, Better Tomorrow, Lateral, Propel, Infinity, Amador, and Ground Squirrel are among the LPs who contributed to the first close of US $20 million, according to Simmons, who also includes two of the largest global multi-stage funds, one of the top fintech investment banks, and one of the top global financial inclusion funds.
“Much like our collective of operator angels gave our founders an unfair advantage in business development strategy, and global networks, our new institutional LPs de-risk our founder’s series As and Bs, investing in us to build early relationships with top emerging markets fintech founders,” Simmons said.
It plans to raise $30 million in the next several weeks and will utilize the funds to fund pre-seed rounds with US $250,000-plus cheques, as well as follow-on at the seed.
