Janngo Pledges €60 Million at Davos to Back African Startups Leveraging Technology to Achieve the SDGs

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Jan 20, 2020, 07:01 ET

Janngo unveils Janngo Capital Startup Fund, its €60m Venture Capital fund dedicated to financing tech-enabled startup accelerating progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in Africa, with a €15m anchor investment by the European Investment Bank

ABIDJAN, Cote D'lvoire, DAVOS, Switzerland and PARIS, Jan. 20, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- On the eve of its participation to the 50th World Economic Forum, Janngo pledges 60€ million to back technology startups with a double bottom line approach through its dedicated investment vehicle Janngo Capital Startup Fund. The fund is a first of its kind Venture Capital & Impact vehicle investing from seed through growth stage across Africa and targeting at least 50% of startups founded, co-founded or benefiting women. This initiative is part of Janngo's broader commitment on financing the SDGs in Africa, as a member of the Goalkeepers Community and the Global Future Council on the New Economic Agenda of the World Economic Forum.

Janngo Pledges €60 Million at Davos to Back African Startups Leveraging Technology to Achieve the SDGs

Entrepreneurship, a powerful engine to provide decent economic opportunities and create jobs in Africa

In Africa, only 3 million jobs are created every year when at least 20 to 30 million jobs will be needed to absorb its fast growing labor force in the coming years. In this context, unlocking entrepreneurship is a critical lever to massively increase the supply of decent jobs and bridge the unemployment gap, both in the formal or informal sector.

"In 2050, we'll be roughly 2.2 billion people in Africa, which means that we need to find now massive ways to feed, educate, house, care for and employ more than 1 billion people in less than 30 years. We believe traditional development models have failed because they were unbalanced and unsustainable either only focusing on commercial returns or too heavily aid-based : our thesis strikes the right balance between delivering solid returns to our investors while being socially accountable, solving key market failures and leveraging technology to help leapfrog development. That's our ikigai, our reason for being, as Janngo means "Tomorrow" or "Future" in Fulani," explains Fatoumata BA, Executive Chair of Janngo and Managing Partner of Janngo Capital.

Venture Capital as a way to bridge gender inequality in accessing funding

African women are known to be the most entrepreneurial in the world with a 26% Total Entrepreneurial Rate in Sub-Saharan Africa where they are twice (..)

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SOURCE Janngo