Canadian Non-Profit Launches $24 Million Tech Venture Fund for African Startups

Canadian non-profit, Engineers without Borders (EWB), has announced a $24 million impact fund for impact-driven African tech ventures, focusing particularly on women-led and locally-founded African tech startups.

The fund is divided into a $20 million blended-finance impact fund to invest in scalable, tech-enabled social ventures at the Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A stages. This fund is also complemented by a $4 million technical assistance facility.

“EWB Canada has been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of its model in addressing the unique needs of early-stage startups in Africa. We have proven that it works, and it is now time to scale its impact,” says Boris Martin, CEO of EWB Canada. “In this case, Hummingbird will allow us to catalyse both philanthropic and commercial capital towards a shared mission.”

In addition to financing technology innovation and entrepreneurship, Hummingbird’s focus on diversity and inclusivity is a move to encourage both public and private investors to address inequality and promote empowerment.

“Research shows that gender and ethnically diverse teams are positively correlated with higher impact and profitability than their peers,” says Muthoni Wachira, Founding Partner for Hummingbird. “Hummingbird will therefore commit 100% of its proceeds towards these underserved, undervalued and undercapitalised ventures.”