Lelapa Fund, a project based and registered in France that connects people with opportunities to invest capital in African start-ups and SMEs and which targets Africans around the world looking for ways to support innovation at home, recently announced that it is shifting its funding model from one that uses crowdfunding to a new one using a closed syndication-style platform, enabling funds and angels to co-invest together.
Who is Lelapa Fund
Lelapa Fund is a niche crowd-investment platform dedicated to African startups. Lelapa is based in France and Kenya. Investors can buy shares online in pre-vetted start-ups and small businesses whose products and services are sold on high growth consumer markets across Africa.
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“We made a decision to put more weight on pre-transaction investment readiness, which required more experienced investors to participate,” explains says LelapaFund co-founder, Elizabeth Howard.
The new platform places increased importance on the sourcing of high-potential startups with LelapaFund conducting significant due diligence in advance; rather than pushing large volumes of lightly-vetted deals.
“The flexibility of LelapaFLOW allows development finance institutions and investors, be they impact or finance-oriented, to share the burden of rigorous due diligence while ensuring blended returns outcomes aligned with their respective mandates,” Howard says.
However, the aim is to also ensure the new tool is of value to entrepreneurs, and in this way to create a pipeline of well-prepared investment opportunities for investor members.
“The vision for LelapaFLOW is to build it into a two-sided due diligence tool, where entrepreneurs have free access to educational materials on investment-readiness that are directly relevant in content and timing to their fundraising. On the other side, venture partners will use its dealflow management functionalities.”
Sources: Disrupt-africa, She Inspires Her, Lelapa Fund
