Investor Profile: Five35 Ventures - Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Five35 Ventures is a pan-African, gender-lens venture capital fund backing female-focused, tech-enabled startups, and it has recently proved that its model can return cash, not just mark up paper value. For founders researching Five35 Ventures funding, the appeal is a fund that invests early, stays close to its companies, and deliberately looks beyond the continent’s four largest startup markets. This profile explains how to get funding from Five35 Ventures, what cheque to expect, and why its first exit matters for anyone considering a pitch.

Thesis: exceptional businesses first, gender lens second

Five35 Ventures invests in female-led, female-managed or female-focused tech-enabled startups across Africa. Founding Partner Hema Vallabh puts it plainly: the fund invests in exceptional businesses first, and the gender lens helps it find overlooked ones. The fund argues that funding female-focused ventures is both a fairness question and an efficiency question, claiming that equal capital opportunity for female-focused startups could lift African GDP by up to 5% while improving investor returns by up to 35%.

Sectors and stages

Five35 Ventures writes pre-seed and seed cheques, with follow-on capacity at Series A, into tech-enabled companies across fintech, agriculture, health, logistics and climate innovation. Geographically it is pan-African, with a stated emphasis on markets beyond Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa, where competition for deals is fiercest and overlooked founders are more common.

Fund size and cheque size

Five35 Ventures was raising a $30 million fund in 2022, then cut its target during the capital downturn, raising its first $1 million through cheques starting at $35,000, largely from first-time investors. Its current final fund size is not publicly disclosed, and this profile does not present the original $30 million target as a closed fund. What is published is cheque guidance: seed investments of up to $500,000 through Simple Agreements for Future Equity (SAFEs), and up to $2 million at Series A. In late 2025, the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund, managed by MEDA, came in as an anchor investor, and the fund expected to close within months.

Notable portfolio and first exit

Five35 Ventures reports a 16-company portfolio that has generated more than 1,400 jobs and attracted over $75 million in follow-on funding. Named companies include Kasha, BuuPass, RxAll, Zindi, Bitmama, Shuttlers, PricePally, Zuri Health, Motherbeing and DigsConnect. Its first exit is its strongest calling card: an April 2022 investment in Ghanaian agritech company Complete Farmer, sold in March 2026 at 3.5 times invested capital and a 38% internal rate of return, as the company’s valuation rose from $6 million to $49 million.

Partners, team and programmes

Five35 Ventures is run by Founding Partner Hema Vallabh, an engineer who co-founded WomHub, alongside General Partner Fatou Touré. The 35’er Club lowers barriers for women entering venture investing, building a pipeline of first-time female investors alongside founders.

How to apply for funding

Five35 Ventures invites founders through its own website, where a dedicated founders section and contact route sit alongside its investor pages, and through introductions from accelerators and ecosystem partners, including WomHub.