It has raised $20 million from investors, including the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Visa Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Symbiotics, as part of the first closure of its second seed-stage fund targeting emerging countries.
Over the next three years, the Seedstars International Ventures II fund plans to invest in 100 pre-seed and seed-stage businesses in Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa. It offers continuation investments through the series A stage.
These investments will be concentrated on businesses in industries including finance, business, health, work, and education that have scalable technologies.
According to Charlie Graham-Brown, a partner at Seedstars, the investment company has risk-mitigation mechanisms in place, including “country diversity, portfolio development approach, and value generation platform.”
Over 30 nations received investments from the first Seedstars International Ventures fund, which supported 81 firms. Pakistani B2B marketplace Dastgyr, Saudi Arabian foodtech firm Foodics, and Indonesian employment site MyRobin are a few of the businesses it has invested in.
The VC also seeks to advance gender equity through its investments, with 26% of the portfolio belonging to women co-founded companies. According to an IFC survey, only 11% of women-led businesses in developing economies acquire startup investment.
