Flat6Labs launches a new fund targeting climate-focused startups: Egypt-based seed and early stage venture capital firm Flat6Labs will launch a USD 95 mn fund targeting greentech, agritech, smart city, and climate tech startups based in Africa, Flat6Labs Chief Investment Officer Dina El Shenoufy (My Morning Routine) told Enterprise Climate. The new Africa Seed Fund (ASF) will invest in over 160 startups across North, West, and East Africa, marking the outfit’s entry into new investment territories including Morocco, Senegal, and Kenya, according to a statement (pdf).

The details: ASF will provide ticket sizes ranging between USD 150-500k to each startup, generating some USD 700 mn in revenues by the end of its five-year lifecycle, the statement notes. ASF will also reinvest in follow-on rounds with selected portfolio companies. Flat6 has not set in stone specific chunks of the USD 95 mn financing package for each sector eligible for sponsorship under ASF to allow for flexibility, El Shenoufy notes.

Who is eligible? Startups from pre-seed funding stage to pre-series A companies will be eligible to receive funding from the fund, the statement notes. “As per our requirements for all our portfolio startups, we want to see a proven minimum value product; we want to back companies with impactful products or solutions in the early stages of commercialization, or ones with a proven market fit,” El Shenoufy tells us.

Flat6Labs anticipates rapid expansion in the climate-action startup sector by 2024: “The climate-action startup sector remains relatively nascent in the regional market, partly because it’s a very R&D-intensive sector. Historically, VCs firms had been shying away from funding climate-focused companies for lack of visible growth in the sector. We expect to see a humongous expansion in the agritech and climate tech sector in the next 12-24 months on the back of massive [potential] in the market, and government mandates aimed at bolstering agricultural expansion and improving climate management,” El Shenoufy says.

Flat6Labs is not planning on launching new funds for the next 24 months. “ASF will be our leading program. We’re very bullish in our support of companies providing climate-driven solutions, especially for agritech and climate tech, because we see the market need for them,” El Shenoufy told us.

Flat6’s portfolio already includes a number of climate-focused and agritech startups including Tunisia’s Kumulus, MooMe, and Wattnow, as well as Egypt-based Agrona, Mycelium, and Zr3i, El Shenoufy noted.