Uhuru Growth Fund I
Uhuru Growth Fund I is the first fund of Uhuru Investment Partners, an emerging manager in West Africa founded by a team with local origins who have spent most of their professional careers in private equity. The team has offices in Lagos and Abidjan, this proximity to market is expected to assist with deal-flow and the ability to add value to portfolio investees.
The Manager will seek to leverage its experience to grow companies across borders and product lines into multi-national, regional operators across both Anglophone and Francophone West African geographies. This will include growing export revenues, developing international production facilities, making bolt-on acquisitions in new geographies and more broadly, diversifying portfolio companies’ revenue by country.
Ghana, Nigeria and Ivory Coast have very low levels of private equity activity, and there is a real dearth of growth capital in these markets. As the first investor to commit to Uhuru Growth Fund I, SIFEM takes a very strong financial and value additionality role in supporting an emerging team and manager. By supporting Uhuru, SIFEM contributes to broadening the private equity ecosystem in West Africa with the objective of contributing to private sector development, economic growth and jobs. The current fundraising environment in West Africa is challenging, and support from development finance institutions is critical.
