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DC Group, the UK’s publicly owned impact investor, has appointed two of the best-known names in the venture capital industry as investment committee members, as it prepares to expand its interests in the sector.
Anne Glover, CEO of Amadeus Capital Partners and Non-Executive Director of the Court of the Bank of England, will join CDC as a member of its Investment Committee. She is joined on the Committee by Nikunj Jinsi, former Global Head of Venture Capital at IFC.
Anne Glover is CEO and Co-founder of Amadeus Capital Partners, a global technology investor. Since 1997, the firm has raised over $1bn for investment and used it to back 165 companies. She has been an active venture capitalist in both developed and emerging markets for 30 years and earlier in her career worked in the US for Cummins Engine Company and then Bain & Co.
A former Chair of the BVCA and of Invest Europe, Anne is a member of the London Business School’s Private Equity Institute Advisory Board. She is also a Non-Executive Director of the Court of the Bank of England and became a member of the Investment Committee of Yale Corporation in 2019.
Both appointees will sit on a newly formed Venture Capital Investment Committee at CDC and advice on venture capital funds and co-investment proposals.
CDC’s new venture capital strategy focuses on partnerships with VC funds across key technology hubs in Africa and south Asia. It is supplemented by its Venture Scale-up co-invest programme designed to support CDC-backed VC funds to coinvest in early-stage companies that leverage technology and innovative business models to achieve transformational impact at scale.
To date, CDC has committed about $140m million across 11 VC funds and $10.5m across 4 early-stage co-investments. A further amount has been earmarked for additional funds and for co-investments.
These include commitments to funds in Africa like TLCom, Sawari Ventures, Novastar and to funds in India like pi Ventures, Pravega Ventures, Stellaris Ventures and Chiratae Ventures. CDC will look to further expand coverage across key start-up hubs in Africa and S Asia.
Co-investments made to date include:
- mPharma, a pan-African logistics technology business in the healthcare sector that reduces the cost of medicines
- CropIn, provides software solutions to agribusinesses globally, with a focus on customers working with smallholder farmers in India and Africa
- Bizongo, India’s largest integrated B2B platform focused on packaging and unbranded consumables, bringing the highly fragmented manufacturing market of SMEs (largely employing low-income workers) into a digital supply chain
- Loadshare, a technology-based asset-light logistics aggregator that operates across the north-east region in India
Nick O’Donohoe, Chief Executive of CDC, said: “Investing in innovative early stage businesses is becoming a core part of CDC’s mission. Entrepreneurs in our markets are leveraging technology to find new ways to unlock market opportunities and increase productivity and can make essential goods and services more readily available to underserved populations in our markets.
“They also create significant new employment opportunities, delivering both attractive financial returns and exceptional development impact. Over the last year, we have been working to develop an integrated approach to how we invest in such businesses and are now in a position to further strengthen our ability to grow our portfolio of venture capital investments.”
CDC has a strong track record of supporting innovation. More than 20 years ago, it was one of the very first investors in Celtel, the African mobile network company. Current large-scale investments include Liquid Telecom – an internet provider that is transforming the digital ecosystem in some of the least developed counties in Africa, including the DRC.
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