Adiwale Partners, a private equity firm focusing on growth capital investments for SMEs in French-speaking West Africa, has announced the first closing of its first fund, Adiwale Fund I, at €50m.

The fund has attracted investors from Africa, Europe and North America. Investors include development finance as well as commercial investors.

Jean-Marc Savi de Tové, Managing Partner at Adiwale Partners, said: “We are very pleased with this first closing which attracted leading institutions that have a keen interest in the development of Africa. The closing demonstrates our expertise and knowledge of the region and it shows the confidence that our institutional investors have in our activities. We are hopeful to reach our target size of €75m within a year.”

He added: “Francophone West Africa attracts less than 7% of private equity investments, where it represents 19% of the GDP of the West Africa region. Locally groomed private equity firms like Adiwale Partners could help close the gap. Today, we have a strong pipeline of attractive projects which our team is already executing on.”

Adiwale Fund I will provide growth capital to SMEs in Francophone West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso as well as Togo, Benin and Guinea.

The fund will be acquiring minority positions in 10 to 12 investments, with tickets of €3-8m per transaction.

Key investment themes for the fund are: rising incomes and changing consumer behaviours, expansion of the local supply chain (increased sophistication of local economies), import substitution and company’s backward integration.

The fund will as a consequence invest in three key sectors: Consumer-related, including health and education; Business Services (transport & logistics, IT, construction-related services, etc) and Manufacturing (chemicals, pharma etc.)

Vissého Gnassounou, Managing Partner at Adiwale Partners, said: “Francophone West Africa’s pool of entrepreneurs is constantly growing and evolving, and has dramatically changed over the past two decades. The region remains the second-fastest-growing region in the world and should continue to post strong growth, as our currency remains stable and provides visibility, countries embark on strong reforms, and borders become more fluid for businesses and for people.”