Aruwa Capital Management, a Lagos-based early-stage growth equity and gender-lens investment firm, has marked the final close of its debut fund that was targeting a corpus of $20 million.
The firm, which was founded and is led by women, said it closed the fund with an oversubscription but did not share how much over and above $20 million it raised.
The fund’s first institutional and anchor investor is Visa Foundation, which invested $4 million. It was followed by others such as Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund and Nyala Venture, backed by Financial Sector Deepening Africa Investments, as well as family businesses from Africa, Europe and the United States.
Aruwa Capital was founded in 2019 by Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes, who has leveraged more than a decade of investment banking and private equity experience from leading global organisations such as JP Morgan. Rhodes said the fund mobilised 30% of the corpus from local investors.
The maiden fund will invest $500,000 to $2.5 million in women-focused small and growing businesses in Nigeria and Ghana, targeting investments in sectors such as healthcare, fintech, renewable energy and essential consumer goods.
To date, the fund has made six investments, committing over 45% of its capital in names such as Wemy (manufacturer of daily disposable personal hygiene goods); Lifestores Pharmacy (pharmacy retail chain and marketplace); Pngme (fintech); Agroeknor (exporter of superfoods and consumer wellness brand); Crowdforce (fintech) and Koolboks (renewable energy refrigeration company for off-grid areas).
“Global data has shown that investing with a gender lens improves financial returns as well as providing a multiplier effect for social impact in local communities due to the role women play, we look forward to showcasing this in Africa specifically,” Rhodes said.
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