“This could be achieved by introducing some form of subordinated funding, which will give institutional investors the confidence they need to invest in a more prudent manner by having the requisite downside protection.” James Tagg, founder and CEO of Quicket. She went on to elaborate that to attract these institutional investors, the asset class needs to be de-risked. From a macro perspective, more needs to be done to attract institutional investors to the asset class, including banks and pension funds.” “As such, the sector needs intervention at all levels for it to truly unlock its potential for economic development. The survey also reveals that independent fund managers are responsible for most new deals.Įxpanding on what needs to be done to stimulate higher levels of fund manager activities in South Africa, Thiru Pather, investment principal at SA SME Fund said: “Firstly, we need to acknowledge that VC is still a developing asset class in our country, especially when compared to more developed countries. However, Cape Town remains the base for the biggest pool of companies in the active portfolios of VC fund managers. Other notable findings included that Gauteng and the Western Cape remain VC’s preferred investment destinations with Johannesburg topping Cape Town in receiving the most deals by number in 2021. “Technology advancements in the education sector also offers many benefits, including the opportunity to reach previously underserved segments of society, improve efficiencies, and close skills gaps.”įintech also attracted the second largest rand value of investments (R298 million), beaten only by the food and beverage sector which maintained its leading position from the previous year.
SAVCA acting CEO and head of policy and regulatory affairs, Shelley Lotz, says that both Fintech and EdTech are crucial sub-sectors for South Africa, and while the local financial system is highly developed and internationally competitive, financial inclusion remains a pressing challenge. Together, these five sub-sectors amounted to 44.7% of all capital invested in 2021.
#VENTURE CAPITAL FUND SOFTWARE#
The five sectors which attracted the greatest number of deals in 2021 in South Africa were fintech (15.9%), edtech (9.1%), consumer products and services (7.9%), ICT (7.9%) and software (6.7%). Together, financial technology (“fintech”) and education and training technology (“edtech”) deals make up a quarter (25%) of all deals concluded during the year, with fintech maintaining its dominance amongst investors by attracting the most deals during the period. The survey reveals that the information and communications technology (ICT) sector accounted for 57% of all VC deals in South Africa during 2021, which corresponds with trends seen in more developed VC markets like the United States and United Kingdom. “These results revealed that investment activities in 2021 were fairly similar to those observed in 2020, despite fewer fund managers doing active deals within the survey period,” he said. As they relate to the natural-gas value stream, those technologies affect the use of hydrogen, renewable natural gas, carbon-capture utilization and sequestration, climate-tech, decarbonization, ESG modeling and accounting, workforce and customer safety, methane detection and leak prevention, business process optimization, customer experience and robotics.Stephan Lamprecht, who spoke to the survey results, said that the findings indicated that two-thirds of all deals were for less than R5 million investment value. The firm coined the phrase green molecules to define technologies encompassing the decarbonization, sustainability and digitization of the natural gas industry.
#VENTURE CAPITAL FUND SERIES#
Led by Vic Pascucci, managing general partner, ECV will accelerate its deployment of capital at the Seed-plus and Series A stage in companies that address the natural gas industry’s ESG imperatives, and enable its digital transformation. (NYSE: AVA), Black Hills Energy (NYSE: BKH), NiSource (NYSE: NI), Southwest Gas Holdings (NYSE: SWX) and Spire (NYSE: SR). (NYSE: NFG) are the latest prominent publicly traded utility companies to invest in ECV’s innovation in “green molecules™.” They join Avista Corp. Energy Capital Ventures, a Chicago, IL-based early-stage venture capital firm dedicated to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) imperatives and digital transformation of the natural gas industry, announced its two final limited partners investing in its $61 million debut Fund I.Įversource Energy (NYSE: ES) and National Fuel Gas Co.
0 kommentar(er)
