Intel Capital to boost African venture capital efforts

18.06.2012
Intel Capital has entered the sub-Saharan Africa market with the aim of boosting venture capital opportunities and forming foundations for long-term economic growth.

"We are looking at opportunities across entire Sub-Saharan Africa," said Marcin Hejka, managing director, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa for Intel Capital. "Naturally we expect the bulk of investment opportunities to come from Africa's largest economies and most populous countries like South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, but we are not excluding other countries."

Although Intel is looking at companies in all stages of development, it will focus on investments in companies in the expansion stage, which will complement efforts made in the last two years to fund startups and early-stage companies.

"Intel Capital is investing in the broad spectrum of technology opportunities including content, software and applications, consumer internet, e-commerce, data center and services; we are able to invest in technology companies at all stages of development, though majority of our investments happens at expansion stage," Hejka added.

Africa has received a lot of interest from global VCs in the last two years and Intel Capital's entry is expected to boost confidence for other investors to seek opportunities in the region. Investors such as Invested Development have been funding early stage mobile phone and alternative energy technologies while Venture Capital for Africa has been linking startups with VCs through an online portal.