Venture Capital (VC) in Africa has grown at a tremendous pace in the last few years as investors hunt value earlier in the cycle. Startup funding in the first half of 2018 was over 50% higher than in the whole of 2017. In this month’s issue of Africa Global Funds, we speak with Enitan Obasanjo-Adeleye, AVCA's Director and Head of Research to discuss the current trends (pp.12-13).

On the private equity side, we hear from Hatim Ben Ahmed, Partner, Mediterrania Capital Partners, about investment opportunities in Morocco. Read on to find why this North African county is a safe haven of PE and the underlying factors that could explain PE interest for Morocco (pp.14-15)

This month we also caught up with Guy Baxter of PAPE Fund Managers. The private equity firm is currently investing out of its PAPE Fund 3. Learn more about the fund’s investment strategy and its pipeline of deals (pp. 16-17).

In this month’s issue, Bernard Drotschie, Deputy CIO from Melville Douglas, looks at South African equities. After a strong start to the year, equity returns on the JSE are negative for the year so far and one, three and five year returns are well below historical averages. He says that SA is stuck in a low-confidence cycle, but has all the required basics to enable a cyclical recovery. Read more on pp.18-19.

Finally, Deon de Klerk, Head of Wealth: Africa Regions for Standard Bank, shares his thoughts about Africa’s emerging wealth market on p.24.