EchoVC, a seed and early-stage technology venture capital firm focused on investing in underrepresented founders and underserved markets, is thrilled to announce a significant milestone in our journey towards fostering innovation in Africa and supporting ground-breaking ideas, products, solutions, and platforms. Today, we are proud to introduce our latest pre-seed fund vehicle – EchoVC Eco [/iː.koʊ-/] Pilot Fund I.

Fuelling Impact, Innovation & Sustainability with Technology:
As a venture capital fund dedicated to unapologetically investing in underrepresented founders and underserved markets, EchoVC is excited to launch EchoVC Eco Pilot Fund I - a $2.5m ‘pilot’ fund in partnership with Shell Foundation with co-funding through UK Aid from the UK Government.

This new fund vehicle represents our commitment to identifying and investing in the most promising pre-seed startups shaping the future of climate, energy, agriculture and mobility. Through our fund, we seek to foster very-early-stage enterprise development and innovation with solutions that enable an income uplift for all the participants along the journey.

Why Eco Fund I?

In keeping with our mission to close the funding gap for underrepresented founders and startups targeting underserved markets, we invested in sector-sensitive companies targeting climate, agriculture, energy and transportation over the last 6 years. Backing incredible founders such as Sara Menker at Gro Holdings, Bim Adisa at Beacon Power Services, Dami Olokesusi at Shuttlers.NG, Desmond Koney at Complete Farmer and June Odongo at Senga, we got a first row look into the journey of these mission-fuelled founders.

Following this, we then spent over a year deep diving to understand where funding flows to, and how it affects, African entrepreneurs within these sectors. Despite marked interest (growing year on year) in harnessing the business potential on the African continent, the distribution of funding to entrepreneurs remains uneven. A sample taken from venture financing deals occurring in Africa between 2017-2021 showed that [Black] Africans accounted for 28% of CEOs and 31% of executive teams of the startups winning financing deals. For the subset of energy, mobility, and agriculture-related firms, the equivalent distribution is 21% of CEOs and 36% of executive teams. That is why as an emerging solution, our Eco Pilot Fund I is targeted at African companies and African founders in Sub Saharan Africa.

As stated by Taiwo Kamson, Principal at EchoVC, “Our Eco Pilot Fund I is not just any fund but a strategic first step initiative designed to address the funding gap in specific impact focused sectors and the respective value chains. We believe that by focusing on these areas, we can make a lasting impact on the growth and development of innovative solutions around agriculture, climate, and energy.”

“Africa’s golden age of entrepreneurship, job creation and household lift will demand that mission-driven founders be backed by high-risk capital. Africa’s needs, while diverse, will not be solved only by investments in fintech,” said Eghosa Omoigui, Managing Partner, EchoVC.

“The objective of our eco pilot fund will be to back founders with first institutional checks and assist them in syndicating financing rounds to support their mission. As a pilot fund, we want to sponsor a pipeline of high quality founders that create high quality companies that can be supported later by the increasing number of climate and energy focused funds. We anticipate that our learnings from this vehicle will feed into our investments to be made from our larger 2024 Eco Fund,” Eghosa Omoigui stated.

“Our approach in coming to market with a relatively tiny pilot fund was to work out the kinks of backing founders in sectors that have historically been underfunded,” said Tsendai Chagwedera, Partner at EchoVC. “As one of the most experienced VC funds on the continent, we have constantly sought to develop innovative ways of financing startups that can create long-term positive financial and high-impact returns in a relatively immature venture capital market, and in today’s risk-off market, entrepreneurs benefit from investors that are ready, willing and able to initialize and maintain financing and company building support,” Omoigui continued.

Taiwo Kamson noted further that “As we see more mid-sized and large funds coming to market to back climate and energy startups, we have struggled to find any that are set up to take first money risk or do the company-building work required to help kickstart the companies that will later be candidates for investment by these funds. The continent needs these pre-seed stage companies to create and deploy the solutions necessary to meet market demand and enable climate-resilient economies.”

Key Features of Eco Pilot Fund I:

Our Eco Pilot Fund I will be focused on making up to ten pre-seed investments in founders and startups that span our specific areas of interest, as set out below.

The Fund will invest broadly in companies led by Africans in Sub Saharan Africa including a specific focus on companies in Nigeria and Kenya delivering particular solutions.

Initial Focus Impact Areas:

1. Access to resources – New technologies focusing on energy provision or use for agriculture (energy for agriculture).

2. Access to finance and insurance – Support intermediaries that can use digital technologies to unlock finance for farmers and mitigate their risks.

3. Knowledge/Capacity Building - Focus on low-cost solutions to provide better market information and training for farming practices.

4. Access to markets - Creating value chains connecting small holder farmers to larger supply chains thus increasing value to farmers.

Other areas of interest include, but not limited to, innovations in energy storage, cooling, and off-grid cooking, smart energy systems and mini-grids, affordable and reliable access to renewable energy, and new approaches to urban transportation including alt-powered two and three wheelers.

The Impact We Aim to Make:

Our goal is to contribute to the growth and success of the most innovative and promising ventures in the outlined impact areas and create jobs and uplift in income as well as expand the reach in customers served. We envision a future where ground-breaking ideas are not only funded but also nurtured to reach their full potential.

Join Us on this Journey:

We welcome visionary entrepreneurs & forward-thinking innovative founders in Africa to connect with us and, together, shape the future and unlock new climate-resilient possibilities.

The EchoVC team is incredibly grateful to our investors who have partnered with us and our founders on this exciting journey.

We look forward to making a lasting impact with EchoVC Eco Pilot Fund I and its successor funds.

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About EchoVC: EchoVC is a Black-led technology-focused seed and early-stage venture capital firm investing in underrepresented founders and underserved markets. With a mission to be the Sequoia Capital for underestimated founders and markets, the firm invests from offices in Lagos, Nairobi, New York and London, and currently has a portfolio of nearly seventy companies. Financing entrepreneurial inspiration in diverse founding teams, and backing bold ideas and business models that harness the power of technology to deliver value to mass markets, EchoVC invests in technology and technology-enabled startups serving markets across sectors and themes such as smart planet, healthcare and human services, education, agriculture, climate, energy, AI, financial services, mobility, commerce, media, and connectivity.

For more information, visit www.echovc.com

About EchoVC Eco Pilot Fund I: EchoVC Eco (pronounced /iː.koʊ-/) is the climate, energy, sustainability, mobility and agriculture investing platform of EchoVC.