Seedstars launches investment platform to develop emerging VC fund managers

Global investment and education company Seedstars has launched Seedstars Capital, an investment platform for emerging VC fund managers, with the support of Swiss-based investment holding company xMultiplied.  

The platform provides emerging and diverse managers with local expertise and unique strategies with the necessary resources to launch new funds and develop their investment firms. 

Additionally, it provides investors with a diversified allocation solution to the asset class within emerging markets.

With the platform, Seedstars expects to drive over US$500 million of new funding into emerging and diverse managers, who will create more than 10,000 new jobs and generate over US$20 billion of additional GDP across emerging markets in the next ten years. 

Despite the exponential growth of the VC industry across emerging markets in recent years, most early-stage VC funds raised are small in size (i.e. below US$50 million assets under management). These funds were raised by an increasing number of new and diverse teams with limited track records and resources, reducing the amount of capital LPs can deploy to these skilful and highly talented managers.

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Seedstars seeks to bridge those market inefficiencies by working alongside new and diverse managers in developing their strategies, providing the resources of its large community of limited partners, mentors, experts, physical locations and the tech and administrative infrastructure. 

Benjamin Langer, Partner of Seedstars Capital, said: “We believe the VC industry needs to be more open and inclusive, and we find highly talented managers across emerging markets. Unfortunately, most lack the scale and resources to attract institutional LPs and depend on local funding to deploy their strategies and create the impact they long for. For LPs, the growing number of new managers makes it difficult to identify the best-performing and most impactful strategies. By pooling their assets and bringing them under our community, we can accelerate the growth of rising managers while offering limited partners the visibility and investment vehicles they need to increase their allocation to the asset class.”

The first fund launched by Seedstars is Seedstars International Ventures, an industry-agnostic pre-seed and seed-stage emerging and frontier market fund. Recently, the fund announced its first close, garnering support and commitments from notable LPs such as IFC, Visa Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation and Symbiotics. 

The platform also works with Seedstars Africa Ventures, a regional-focused fund to back companies in the African continent. The fund has partnered with French private equity and asset manager LBO France to address the investment gap existing in the region.

Moreover, Seedstars is currently working towards launching funds focused on edutech, supply chain, climate tech and other impact sectors with outstanding rising managers in emerging markets to be announced soon.

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