FSD Africa Investments (FSDAi) has invested £1 million in Africa Climate Ventures (ACV), a pioneering venture builder working to build a $45 million portfolio by the end of 2024.
ACV will catalyze the carbon asset class in Africa by building innovative businesses focused on solving our generation’s greatest challenge and at the same time capturing a significant share of global carbon markets in Africa.
The venture represents a series of “firsts” in Africa: from its entirely Africa-based founder team and its permanent capital structure based in Kigali International Financial Centre, to its exclusive focus on carbon mitigation, capture and removal, the continent’s fastest evolving sector.
ACV represents a historic evolution in Africa’s carbon ecosystem and will contribute directly to capital mobilization in climate action. Indeed, by 2030 ACV aims to eliminate one million tons of carbon every year while improving the lives of 50 million Africans and creating at least 5,000 jobs on the continent.
The venture builder features a peerless bench of experienced Africa-based founders with a record of pioneering innovation on the continent and championing disruptive enterprises.
James Mwangi is a 2022 Climate Breakthrough Award Winner and the founder of the Climate Action Platform for Africa, a non-profit organization that aims to help Africa achieve broad-based economic growth through climate action leadership. James is best known as a co-founder of Dalberg Advisors, the firm’s first elected Global Managing Partner and then Dalberg Group’s Executive Director.
Mohamed Cassim is a South African investor best known as an angel investor, the Chair of MFS Africa Board, and the Founder of Abacus Advisory. CJ Fonzi was also a Partner at Dalberg Advisors, with the firm for over a decade he served as the Group Director of Innovation and then founded Dalberg’s Rwanda business in 2017.
This team is working to build a portfolio of climate-positive businesses across Africa, with the ultimate aim of launching and scaling 15 ventures in the next four years.
ACV is seeking to build this portfolio by investing to:
- bring proven global climate technology to Africa,
- accelerate and de-risk the continental expansion of technologies and business models that have gained traction in one or a few African market(s), and
- add carbon revenue streams to existing African businesses with the potential to scale climate-positive solutions.
ACV has adopted a structure more in-line with a global north venture studio in which the vehicle is structured as a permanent capital vehicle that sells equity rather than securing fund management mandates.
This has allowed ACV to begin building ventures in parallel with fund raising, which the founders believe is paramount given the urgency of climate change and the need for Africa to quickly establish itself as part of the solution.
There are already two ventures in the portfolio. KOKO Networks Rwanda, a co-venture between ACV and KOKO Networks already provides sustainable bioethanol cooking fuel to over 900,000 Kenyan families and aims to reach a million Rwandan families by 2027, and Great Carbon Valley, a Kenya-based developer of direct-use clean energy applications currently focused on developing a direct air capture and permanent carbon storage site in Kenya.
ACV’s pipeline of further opportunities demonstrates the breadth and versatility of the venture builder. They range from biochar and enhanced rock weathering technologies, to biodigester and e-mobility businesses, to harvesting carbon revenue for green growth across the portfolio of a well-established continental private equity fund.
For further information on FSDAi, ACV, and the project pipeline, visit FSDAI here.