Impact Venture Capitalist firm focused on climate tech, Equator has reached an initial close of its first fund with $40 million in commitments.
Equator invests in low-carbon technologies and business model innovation to tackle global warming and boost communities’ and businesses’ resilience.
Startups in seed and Series A stages across the energy, agriculture and mobility sectors where lots of untapped market opportunities keep growing, are Equator’s major focus as it takes these companies from their earliest to growth stages.
Equator is looking to invest in ventures that leverage technology, such as hardware, software or business model innovation, to bring new ideas to regions with limited innovation. Focusing on clean energy, agriculture and mobility, the fund aims to support technical founders with domain expertise who can create solutions to alleviate the effects of climate change on income disparity in Africa.
With the goal of making up to 15 investments throughout the fund’s projected time period, Equator typically provides pre-Series B clean tech startups in sub-Saharan Africa with round sizes of $10 million or less. For seed stages, the VC invests between $1 to $2 million, and for Series A stages, it writes checks of between $2 to $4 million.
With teams in Nairobi, Lagos, London, and Colorado, Equator is also collaborating with Factor[e] Ventures – an organization of venture builders and pre-seed investors – in sourcing deals and conducting due diligence, as well as leveraging its post-investment support platform for the benefit of its portfolio companies as they scale.
Equator anticipates capitalizing on the rising awareness of climate tech’s significance and its role in tackling climate change. Even though it is far behind fintech, investments in the field are gradually being used to lower the cost of solar systems and batteries, and allowing more individuals and businesses to access them through pay-as-you-go models.
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