Mohamed Okasha, Managing Partner at DisrupTech Ventures, has said that the fund expects to invest between $4-5m in 4 new Egyptian fintech startups during the current year.
This came during a round table held by the Fund and attended by Daily News Egypt to announce the developments of its work.
Okasha said that the number of start-up companies in which the fund has invested so far has reached 14, and it plans to reach 28 during the next stage, pointing out that DisrupTech succeeded during the last stage in exiting one company, Fatora.
He added that DisrupTech’s most recent investment was in the artificial intelligence technology company Wide Bot, which operates in the local and Saudi markets and is one of the approved partners of Meta for social media applications.
Okasha continued, that the size of the fund’s portfolio is currently estimated at about $36m, compared to $25m in February 2022, indicating that the list of shareholders in DisrupTech includes the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and Proparco, the investment arm of the French Development Agency (AFD), at $5m each, in addition to the Enterprise Development Agency and the Manara Advance Fund, unlike other funds from the Gulf countries, South Africa and Madagascar.
He stated that 40% of the fund’s volume of funds has been invested in two types of startups, the first of which is fintech companies and others that are fintech enabled, which focus on developing and building financial technology platforms to serve other sectors such as agriculture and health.
He said that the term for the fund’s investment in one startup ranges from 5 to 7 years, and exit is based on the appropriate investment opportunity and the value proposition.
He pointed out that DisrupTech aims to achieve 3 to 4 times the return on investment within 10 years, which is the life of the fund, indicating that the fund invests in return for acquiring a minority stake ranging between 5 to 10%.
He added that the decision to reinvest the proceeds of exits from startups or to distribute them to the fund’s shareholders is up to its board of directors.
He said that the fund requires the availability of a set of criteria in the startups, including the presence of previous experiences of the founders and their ability to persuade investors and develop creative ideas that represent an added value to the market.
