AfricInvest

Investment decisions are driven by the partnership group, led by Co-Founder and Managing Partner Ziad Oueslati. Each fund family has its own investment committee, staffed by senior partners with sector and geographic mandates. The 11-office structure means local managing partners carry significant pre-committee origination and diligence authority, a model designed to prevent bottlenecking decisions in Tunis.

AfricInvest originates deals through its 11 local offices, not through centralized roadshows or broker-driven networks. The local teams — often nationals of the countries they cover — leverage relationships with family-owned businesses, regional regulators, and banking groups. This ground-level network is supplemented by co-investment relationships with other Africa-focused GPs and the firm’s long-standing DFI network.

AfricInvest is neither — it is a multi-strategy private equity asset manager. It manages commingled blind-pool funds raised from institutional LPs, including development finance institutions, pension funds, and family offices. Its strategies include growth equity, venture capital, and private credit, all run through regulated fund structures domiciled in Mauritius and other jurisdictions.

AfricInvest primarily executes direct equity and debt investments in portfolio companies. It does not operate as a fund-of-funds. However, it has co-invested alongside other GPs on larger transactions and maintains informal co-investment club relationships with institutional peers who share its regional footprint.

The firm targets a wide range of stages through distinct fund families. Its flagship AfricInvest Fund series focuses on mid-market growth and buyout deals, typically writing $5 million to $20 million equity checks. The Cathay AfricInvest Innovation Fund, managed jointly with Cathay Capital, targets Series A and B venture rounds in tech-enabled businesses. Its private credit arm extends senior and mezzanine loans to mid-market companies from a dedicated debt vehicle.

AfricInvest’s exclusion list, driven by its DFI investor base, typically rules out thermal coal, hard-goods extractives without strong local beneficiation, tobacco, and gambling. The firm has historically avoided heavily cyclical commodity-linked industrial businesses, focusing instead on sectors with growing domestic demand profiles — financial services, healthcare, consumer goods, and infrastructure-adjacent industrials.

AfricInvest does not maintain a separate philanthropic foundation. Its development impact is embedded within the commercial fund structures, which accept both impact-first and commercial-only LP share classes. The firm reports impact metrics to DFI investors through standardized frameworks, but impact considerations are integrated into investment committee discussions rather than walled off in a separate vehicle.