Teranga Capital

Managing Partners Olivier Lelarge and Mamadou Diagne jointly lead the investment committee. Lelarge previously worked at Cauris Croissance, a francophone West Africa growth fund, while Diagne came from a corporate finance background with regional bank group CBAO. Both sign off on all portfolio construction and exit timing.

The firm relies on the partners' relationships with Senegalese commercial banks, local accounting networks, and the Dakar business community's informal networks. Lelarge's role as chair of the Senegalese Private Equity Association gives the firm early visibility into regulatory shifts that shape family-owned companies' succession-driven capital needs.

Teranga Capital is a traditional private equity fund manager, not a family office. It raises third-party capital from development finance institutions and local insurers into a closed-end fund with limited-partner reporting obligations.

Teranga Capital only makes direct equity and quasi-equity investments in operating companies. It does not commit capital to other funds.

The firm targets growth-stage SMEs with established revenue and a proven market position, typically deploying $300,000 to $1.5 million per company. It avoids seed-stage startups and pre-revenue ventures.

Teranga Capital has publicly disclosed exclusions for extractive industries, real estate development, and primary agriculture. Its mandate focuses on value-added processing, services, and distribution.

Teranga Capital is an independent, partner-owned firm with no parent entity. It chose to remain independent rather than affiliate with a larger African private equity group, a deliberate structural decision the founding partners made when leaving their prior institutional roles.