Founders Factory Africa rebrands to 54 Collective

African venture capital firm Founders Factory Africa has announced its rebrand to 54 Collective. The new name reflects the firm’s ambitious pan-African vision, aspiring to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses to serve all 54 African countries.

Launched in Johannesburg in 2018 in partnership with Standard Bank, the company subsequently secured backing from Netcare to provide a platform for entrepreneurs to build and scale e-health startups and Small Foundation to invest in over 18 agtech startups across sub-Saharan Africa. Last year 54CO secured an additional US$114 million in funding from Mastercard Foundation and Johnson & Johnson to scale its model to better serve founders across the African tech ecosystem.

54 Collective aims to provide founders with catalytic capital, including both equity and non-dilutive funding, while integrating impact with commercial success. Its new Venture Success Platform will offer free, bespoke, hands-on services from its expert teams in Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, whose deep local knowledge helps founders achieve scale and growth.

“Our catalytic capital and value-add support to founders, through our Venture Success Platform, signifies our evolution and ongoing mission to support entrepreneurs across Africa and enable them to build without boundaries to drive commercial and impact returns. Our name change to 54 Collective communicates our continued commitment to African founders. We are more supportive than ever of unlocking opportunities for entrepreneurs and ensuring a level playing field for youth and women founders,” said 54 Collective CEO Bongani Sithole.

54 Collective offers equity and non-dilutive capital up to a total of US$500,000, enabling founders to scale their ventures across the continent. To break barriers of access, female founders receive an additional US$150,000, to their male counterparts, in the form of a non-dilutive capital.

This edited article was originally published on Disrupt Africa.