Who is Actively Investing in Emerging Markets?
Many venture firms say they’re "investing" in emerging markets — but what do the numbers say? Who is actively deploying capital? I've created a live leaderboard (updated quarterly) to illuminate this.
Stay up to date on emerging market trends and companies I’m following closely as an emerging VC investing in LatAm, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia:
Hello!
Welcome to my fourth piece on Emerging Market VC, where each week I’ll share technology trends and companies in emerging markets that I’m following closely. As a reminder, I’ll publish primarily in two formats:
Deep dives into market dynamics & trending stories in LatAm, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia
Features (narrative style) on early-stage companies I’m bullish on in these regions — I meet personally with every company to unpack the story & opportunity, and am often either an investor or interested in potentially being one.
This week’s piece will be on the shorter side, summarizing my findings from data wrangling with regard to emerging market VC investment activity over the past two quarters.
Let’s jump straight into it!
Cheers,
Kevin
Which VCs are actively deploying in EM?
Many global venture firms say they’re “actively investing” in emerging markets — Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia specifically. But amongst the noise, who is actually ACTIVELY deploying?
To my surprise, I couldn’t find an actionable, real-time, and consolidated ranking anywhere. 🤦
Saving Time for Founders in these Regions
Based on feedback I’ve heard from early-stage founders in these regions, the lack of a centralized, updated resource on deal-making activity is painful — particularly when putting together an investor hitlist for PreSeed, Seed, or Series A rounds.
For a founder aiming to optimize their time and run a tight fundraising process, which firms are worth adding to your hitlist?
A few questions to ask yourself:
Who is actually deploying (and worth my time)?
Of the firms actively deploying, whom have they backed recently? (to avoid competitive dynamics)
Of the firms actively deploying, are they the right stage and category fit for us?
Do they actively lead? (It’s often far more efficient to prioritize a lead first, the rest will follow once a lead is secured)
So this week on Emerging Market VC, my goal was to wrangle some data and put together (to the best of my knowledge) the most comprehensive “living” leaderboard of venture firms actively investing — over the past two quarters — in emerging markets across Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
My intent with this database is to save founders in these regions time and reduce headache from dozens of investor calls that go nowhere — simply because those firms are not actually deploying capital at the moment.
Rather than pitching firms that are sitting on the sidelines, focus on engaging the firms actively deploying. ✅
A few parameters for this database:
Based on publicly available data — I’m fully aware there are early-stage deals that have been made in stealth and/or unreported. Please take the metrics here as general guidance rather than absolute fact.
Firms listed have made at least 2 investments in the past 2 quarters (based on publicly available data). For simplicity’s sake, I have hidden the broader list of firms with 1 publicly listed deal in these regions over the past two quarters (feel free to DM me for the larger list).
Only equity investments (I’ve excluded grants / debt)
Only venture backed tech startups (I’ve excluded real estate projects, utilities, banks, and other irrelevant vehicles)
PreSeed, Seed, Series A, and Series B (excluding growth stage investors)
I’ll update Emerging Market VC’s Deal Activity Leaderboard every quarter to reflect the latest, as a free public resource. So please do let me know if there are features you’d like to see:
I’ve added fields such as Stage, Generally Leads(?), and Sectors to help you better drill down into which of these firms may be the best fit to add to your fundraising hitlist.
Happy to facilitate intros:
I’m connected with many of the firms on this list — feel free to subscribe to www.emergingmarketvc.com and request an intro by DM via LinkedIn or at kevin@emergingmarketvc.com.
I’d be happy to broker an intro if it makes sense for all parties! Or at the very least, given my understanding of what these firms are looking for, advise on how to best position for successful outreach.
Also including my sources for this research here: Crunchbase, Pitchbook, CBinsights, Google search, direct input from founders.
My Findings
OK, now on to the fun part. I’ll summarize a few of my findings below.
Of over 1,000 firms investing across emerging markets in the past two quarters, the three most active firms in aggregate are… drumroll please…
Antler — Antler is a global, generalist, PreSeed & Seed investor powered by a global community of operators, investors, and builders.
Techstars — Techstars is a global accelerator with cohort-based investment decisions. Generally invests $120K at between $3M to $5M valuation cap.
500 Global — 500 Global is a global venture firm with regional, cohort-based accelerator programs. Accelerator programs generally invest $80K to $100K and involve a two month engagement.
Interestingly, the past two quarters saw a particular density in investment activity in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, with generally more conservative activity in Africa and Latin America.
Across each region, the most active investors are typically generalists.
Africa Leaderboard
In Africa, the top ten investors by deal activity were:
Latin America Leaderboard
In Latin America, the top ten investors by deal activity were:
Middle East Leaderboard
In the Middle East, the top ten investors by deal activity were:
Southeast Asia Leaderboard
In Southeast Asia, the top ten investors by deal activity were:
I appreciate any feedback you have on this leaderboard! I’ll update it quarterly (beginning of each new quarter) to reflect the latest deal activity rankings across emerging markets over the prior quarter.
I’m also happy to make adjustments and/or add additional helpful criteria. If you feel a particular datapoint is incorrect, please do reach out directly and I’ll make corrections where necessary.
Most importantly, my goal is to make this database a definitive, trusted, and actionable resource for early-stage founders across these regions.
Thanks for reading! Until next week 👋
-Kevin
Stay up to date on emerging market trends and companies I’m following closely as an emerging VC investing in LatAm, Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia: