The Investor Roundtable: Looking to Scale in 2022
500 Global, Flat6Labs, Global Ventures, and Indus Valley Capital join MAGNiTT for the annual investor roundtable where they bring their year in insights and extensive data to the forefront. While 2021 observed the surge of later-stage deals and inflated ticket sizes, 2022 seems to be the year where Scale is the number one priority for ecosystems in Emerging Venture Markets- Read More+ Watch the full Panel
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The landscape of the VC ecosystem in Emerging Venture Markets is shifting. Yesterday, our CEO Philip Bahoshy invited EVMs' top backers and venture builders to discuss these critical shifts in perceptions, investment trends, and the welcoming of new players to the space. Philip was joined by Amal Dokhan from 500 Global, Dina El Shenoufy from Flat6Labs, Basil Moftah from Global Ventures, and Aatif Awan from Indus Valley Capital in an effort to bring ecosystem shifts to the forefront.
From the panel, one avid shift in perception and investor interest has been the heavy consideration of the SSA ecosystem. Dina expressed that from a founder’s perspective, SSA has become a lot more interesting to Egyptian entrepreneurs for one. There’s always been a slight difference in perspective between Egyptian ventures and the rest of North Africa; when North Africa has always sought out after SSA markets, Egypt is just now starting to catch up. A driver could be that Egypt aside, most North African markets are relatively small resulting in founders feeling more pressure to expand into other markets early on, while Egypt has been self-sufficient. On the other hand, Basel took it a step further to dissect the African markets and emerge with a market-tested investment strategy. The level of technology and innovation coming out of SSA, where Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa lead the charge in FinTech, HealthTech, and Energy innovation has been impressive enough for global players and investors to want a stake in the market. For Global Ventures, it was the similarities of the criteria and conditions that pushed for their “P.E.N” investment strategy: Pakistan-Egypt-Nigeria.
For Moftah, these three markets showed great potential considering the large size of the markets, the plethora of underserved segments like the unbanked or uninsured, and most importantly the presence of scalable potential. Aatif shared insights on the magnificent progress undertaken by the Pakistani VC ecosystem, where between 2016 and 2018 the ecosystem as a whole was averaging $10M a year in funding while MENA was rasing 8x that amount. In 2021, while Pakistan closed the funding gap with an unprecedented $335M raised, the presence of only a handful of Series B staged startups in Pakistan was a great sign for Aatif that the future for the Pakistani ecosystem looks bright.
Here Amal stressed the importance and the need of doubling down on Early-Stage deal-making efforts. While investors have been looking at their portfolios for opportunities to further boost established startups with later-stage funding rounds and larger ticket sizes, Amal stresses the idea of creating a future pipeline- one that involves SEED investment mentality with the longevity needed to ensure startup growth and future success.
What did EVMs top investors predict for 2022? More insight in the pieces to come! Special thanks to our Esteemed panelists Dina, Aatif, Basil, and Amal for their generous insight and proactive role in building this panel and the ecosystem. To learn more, download our free State of Startup Funding- 2022 Emerging Venture Markets report and verify your own themes!
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