What’s on Goodwell’s radar? - February 2025 Edition
“The times, they are a-changin’,” and Goodwell is continuing to navigate the turbulence with pragmatic optimism. Looking to Africa, its motivated youth, and its entrepreneurship, is more important than ever. Supporting inclusive opportunities can help steer the broader investment ecosystem towards positive impact, in Africa and the wider world. Here’s a few of the topics on our radar this month, inspiring and informing us as we work:
2024 lessons for 2025
Africa: The Big Deal hosted a webinar earlier in the year, presenting their 2024 report on the state of African impact investing, and providing an interesting look back at the year: African start-ups raised USD 2.2 billion, a 25% year-on-year drop, and accounting for 0.6% of equity raised globally. However, there are signs of stabilisation after a three-year decline in fundraising. Nearly half of this funding went toward fintech, and Kenya and East Africa remained the strongest fundraising regions for start-ups.
Increased gender-lens investment is a must
Female-led start-ups, however, had an extremely disappointing year for fundraising. Female CEOs in Africa attracted only USD 48 million, a huge drop from 2023’s female-focussed investment. However, from our perspective this also means there is huge, worthwhile opportunity for impact by rigorously applying a gender lens to our 2025 investments – while championing this approach amongst our peers, of course.
Examining regional trends in South Africa
Goodwell takes a locally led approach, and our team in South Africa constantly monitors and examines the impact potential of regional trends. This article shares an interesting overview to get you up to speed on the what the South African investment market may be influenced by this year, including the growth of green tech, consistent demand for cashless payments and the related infrastructure, and a rise in AI usage.
$10 million investment in climate tech for sub-Saharan Africa
Towards the end of last year, the African Development Bank announced a significant investment of USD 10 million in the ACV Fund, aimed at catalysing critical climate solutions on the continent. While scientists sound the alarm on a quickly degrading climate situation, such investments are more important than ever. A concerted effort by private equity to drive climate solutions is now a clear impact responsibility. Such funding will provide essential financing to the entrepreneurs actively building a more resilient future from Africa.
AI in climate tech
With that responsibility in mind, we’re interested in how AI is being applied to climate science and technology. It’s an increasingly useful tool for building climate resilience, from power grid management to ecosystem modelling to carbon management. As this machine-learning, data-driven innovation continues to unfold, it’s worth looking for ways to ensure this technology grows sustainably and inclusively to ensure its positive impact potential outweighs the negative.