Over the past year there has been a greater number of pension funds looking at Africa, according to Runa Alam, CEO and Co-Founder of Development Partners International (DPI), a $1.1bn Africa private equity specialist.

"These represent the largest group of investors in our recent fund," she added.

DPI is working with some of the most notable corporate and public pension funds, endowments and foundations, family offices and development finance institutions from across the US, Europe, Middle East and Africa, with US investors making up over 40% of its limited partner base.

Since inception DPI has successfully closed two oversubscribed funds, the second one, ADP II, closing earlier this year, at $725m, significantly above its target.

"We have been participating and supporting the Africa story at DPI since our inception in 2007 and, before that, since private equity started in Africa," said Alam.

DPI’s investment portfolio is undergoing rapid growth.

As a result, DPI has recently entered into a working relationship with iLEVEL, one of the leading portfolio monitoring, analytics and data management platforms for the global private capital markets to manage the firm’s portfolio data and free up valuable time for portfolio managers to focus on portfolio management and enhanced reporting to their investors.

"The relationship with iLevel will free up significant time of the team, while giving them more and timely information to manage better our investments and enable us to focus on generating higher returns," commented Alam.

DPI has also expanded its team with three senior appointments year to date alone: Marc Stoneham, who joined the firm as Portfolio Manager from McKinsey where he worked as Engagement Manager responsible for Africa; Andrew Limeburner who joined from HgCapital as Fund Controller; and Michael Hall, environmental and governance expert who joined from Environmental Resources Management, who will support the team in adhering to their strict ESG and due diligence processes in his role as Sustainability Manager.

In addition, the firm moved to larger offices last December to accommodate the firm’s 24 staff after doubling in size in the past two years alone.

The firm has also entered their heartland Africa, with an office opening in Lagos, Nigeria, last December, their first on the continent, headed by Idris Mohammed, a long-standing Partner with DPI.

"As a business in charge of advising institutional clients on investment opportunities on the continent, we have the responsibility to be diligent in our assessment and monitoring processes and have therefore strengthened our team in this area in particular, to continue to invest, monitor and work in responsible and fundamentally healthy businesses on the continent," she added.