VENTURE CAPITAL

By Celestine Okorie, Correspondent South Africa The Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) in 2020 launched a new initiative “Enterprise Development for Women-Owned Ventures in Green Energy” in partnership with the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF). The programme is implemented in Malawi and Nigeria. Now, AWIEF has announced the call for applications for an Accelerator Programme targeting 10 women-owned and/or women-led enterprises involved in renewable and green energy production or service. What does the programme offer? Entrepreneurs will receive tailored support and training for scaling; one-on-one expert mentoring and...

Other top investments included the acquisition of container glass packaging manufacturer Piramal Glass, by Blackstone for US$1 billion, and US$603-million investment in Zomato by global PE firms led by Tiger Global and Kora Management. On the back of Reliance’s fund-raising spree, private equity (PE) and venture capital (VC) investments in 2020 beat the pandemic blues and recorded the highest level in the last five years at US$39.2 billion across 814 deals. This was 6.6 per cent higher than 2019, which had seen 1,012 deals. Investments into RIL’s businesses made up...