FUNDING | Mauritius P1 Ventures to Double Down on Africa’s Startups After Closing First $50 Million Institutional Fund

Same as when the firm closed its second $50 million fund in 2024, P1 Ventures says Africa's potential lies in its unique advantages over developed markets. While job protectionism, legacy regulations, and existing infrastructure often slow adoption in developed economies, Africa—and other emerging markets—experience accelerated adoption driven by necessity.

kodzilla··3 min read

Pan-African early-stage venture capital firm, P1 Ventures, has secured its first $50 million institutional fund.

The fund has drawn investments from African conglomerates, family offices, and global partners, including:

  • The World Bank’s IFC

Notable senior advisors include:

  • Bernard Dalle from Index Ventures and
  • Former Uber Chief Business Officer Emil Michael

said a press release.

With over $60 million in assets under management, P1 Ventures continues to build on a year of strong growth, highlighted by its largest deal to date – co-investing as the sole African VC alongside Accel in Morocco-based Nuitee’s $48 million Series A round.


At a time when African venture funding is declining for a second year and global investors retreat to familiar markets like Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt, and South Africa, P1 Ventures is taking a different approach – doubling down on the next generation of bold African founders.

 

“We have strong conviction there will be billions of USD of value created by global companies that have been ‘made in Africa’. From Dakar to Nairobi, Cairo to Cape Town, we’re seeing founders combining local insights with global ambition.

These entrepreneurs are not just solving Africa’s problems – they’re creating models that the rest of the world can learn from.”

– Mika Hajjar, Managing Partner at P1 Ventures

 

Same as when the firm closed its second $50 million fund in 2024, P1 Ventures says Africa’s potential lies in its unique advantages over developed markets. While job protectionism, legacy regulations, and existing infrastructure often slow adoption in developed economies, Africa – and other emerging markets – experience accelerated adoption driven by necessity.


P1 Ventures is expanding its vision to support companies that are boldly ‘Built in Africa for the World.’

Rather than importing business models, a growing pool of talented entrepreneurs from across the continent is harnessing Africa’s innovation. With AI breaking down borders and transforming industries, these companies are now scaling their solutions globally.

 

  • Morocco’s Nuitee is a prime example. The AI-powered hotel booking platform now has 240+ global employees and works with Hilton, Sabre, and Hopper. Its founder, Med Benmansour, is a Silicon Valley-trained engineer who came back to launch many startups including Binga, an API-first payment company he bootstrapped to profitability.
  • Egypt’s Gameball, a gamified loyalty and customer engagement platform from Egypt, now serves over 3,000 customers in 70+ countries. Its founder, Ahmed Khairy, is also a repeat founder with a technical background and over 12 years of experience building products and leading business development for global enterprises.
  • South Africa’s Salus, the one-click software deployment solution for enterprise and SMBs, has the potential to become a global player. Its founder, Andrew Mori, was formerly CTO at African eCommerce giant Konga and bootstrapped his first company Deimos to USD 20 million annual revenues.
  • Egypt’s StakPak is an AI copilot for non-DevOps engineers, built to address the fact that over 99% of Africa’s engineers are non-DevOps, and global AI tools are difficult to import. Its founder, George Fahmy, trained as a DevOps engineer in the US and Europe and saw, first-hand, the need for such a product to bridge Africa’s talent gap.
See also

 

P1 Ventures leverages in-house data science tools to uncover Africa’s next tech giants. With a proprietary database of approximately 10,000 Pan-African companies, its AI-driven approach combines local expertise with deep market insights to identify promising startups early, track trends, and spot top talent. This not only enhances deal flow but also provides significant value to portfolio companies as they scale.

 

“From game-changing fintech to pioneering AI applications, we’re uniquely positioned to identify opportunities and support their growth. Great companies are often built in tough times and today’s founders are more frugal, focused, and realistic about valuations.

We believe this may be the greatest vintage ever,” said Hisham Halbouny, Managing Partner at P1 Ventures.

 

 

 

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