The First-time Fund Manager Raising 50 Million To Focus On The Deep-end Investing In The Missing Middle

James, a first-time fund manager raising a 50 million fund, shares insights on finding the right investors and how to convince them to sign those cheques.

Raising money is no easy featjust ask any startup founder who has closed a funding round. These conversations can stretch on for months, sometimes years, and finding the right investors often feels like searching for a needle in a haystack.

These same challenges also extend to venture capital firms when they are raising capital. While there is no shortage of stories about the difficulties of raising funds as an African startup founder, little has been said about the unique problems of African investors raising their first funds.

In this two-part series, an African entrepreneur and consultant who has partnered with an accelerator manager and an experienced tech operator to launch his first fund shares his experience. While he has clear goalsdeveloping a model that will change how African VCs return capital to their investors and investing in overlooked early-stage startups that have not raised growth-stage capitalthe journey to achieving them has been difficult.

This interview has been edited for clarity