In April 2022, Five35 Ventures, a gender-focused venture capital firm, wrote one of its first cheques to Complete Farmer, a Ghanaian agritech company that connects smallholder farmers to consumers, inputs and financing.
In March 2026, it bought its whole stake. Five35 says the sale returned 3.5 instances its cash, an inside charge of return of 38% over 4 years, and that Complete Farmer’s valuation rose from $6 million to $49 million over the identical interval.
Five35 is a pan-African fund that writes pre-seed and seed cheques into tech-enabled firms, specializing in markets past the massive 4 of Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa.
“We invest in exceptional businesses first, and the gender lens helps us find overlooked ones,” mentioned Hema Vallabh, Five35’s founding accomplice. “Turning that value into realised returns for our investors is the real test of our success. Over the next six to 18 months, we will write bigger cheques now that we have an anchor, invest more in secondary markets, and then move into our harvest period, where we will look harder at exits.”
Exits are uncommon in African enterprise capital and rarer in agritech, in accordance to Briter, which calls exit routes the sector’s tightest constraint, as fragmented provide chains and heavy working capital wants make it onerous for firms to scale.
Vallabh, an engineer who based the ladies’s entrepreneurship platform WomHub, runs the fund with common accomplice Fatou Touré. Five35 was elevating $30 million in 2022. When the capital winter hit, Vallabh minimize the goal and raised her first $1 million by cheques beginning at $35,000, principally from first-time buyers. The Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund got here in as an anchor in late 2025, and she or he expects to shut within the subsequent three to 6 months.
The sale was partly a industrial name and partly a strategic one: a first-time supervisor nonetheless elevating cash wanted to indicate buyers it might return money.
Vallabh explains beneath what Five35 means by a gender lens, why it bought its greatest performer early, the way it raised cash as a first-time supervisor, and what feminine founders face after they pitch that almost all buyers by no means see.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
How do you make investments on the continent?
We make investments at pre-seed and seed in firms which can be considerably tech-enabled, and we’re sector agnostic. We are pan-African, with an even bigger deal with sub-Saharan Africa and a small allocation for North Africa. We put money into the massive 4 of South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya, and we’re additionally enthusiastic about secondary markets reminiscent of Ghana, Senegal and the DRC.
We make investments with a gender lens, and for us that goes past feminine founders. Our definition is about intentionality. An organization will be co-owned or co-led by ladies, with a girl in an actual management function reminiscent of CEO or CTO.
It can have an deliberately feminine workforce, with ladies unfold throughout the enterprise and never solely on the decrease ranges. Or it will probably have an deliberately feminine buyer base. The take a look at is how we get extra ladies taking part in financial exercise, residing higher lives and making more cash.
For the client base, the instance I take advantage of is a male founder who builds a maternal well being app. He is intentionally serving ladies, and people ladies develop into more healthy and extra economically energetic. We are a completely gender-lens fund, and for each investment, it must be clear why we think about it one.
Complete Farmer has a male founder. How does it suit your gender lens?
It is an efficient instance of our thesis. Desmond is a male founder, however Complete Farmer is a B2B and B2C platform, and after we invested, about 55% to 60% of its clients had been ladies. Women additionally made up about 80% of its post-harvest workforce.
Because of the platform, extra feminine farmers had been taking their produce to market extra effectively and extra profitably. The mannequin gave farmers a market earlier than they planted, which made their revenue extra predictable and lowered waste. The gender impression was constructed into what made it a commercially compelling enterprise.
Why did you construct Five35 round a gender lens?
I’ve labored on this house for 20 years. I’m an engineer turned entrepreneur turned investor. My first organisation was a non-profit that helped get extra ladies into engineering. I later turned it right into a industrial enterprise, WomHub, which at the moment works throughout expertise, incubation and acceleration, co-working areas and capital.
Someone who begins a fintech fund normally comes from banking. Gender is my specialisation. It is the proper factor to do, and it’s also an missed market that repeatedly reveals higher returns. Our pipeline comes from the WomHub community and 20 years of labor, and our companions assist us help founders in methods different funds can’t.
At pre-seed and seed, you might be backing the founder greater than the numbers, as a result of the numbers will not be there but. Research reveals feminine founders are deprived at this stage as a result of they don’t match the mould.
Pitch competitions, to place it a bit of facetiously, are designed for the very articulate white male American founder. A extra introverted founder might not pitch as nicely and nonetheless be excellent at constructing her enterprise. That is why we’d like extra fund managers and investment committee members who seem like the founders we wish to again.
You argue that gender-lens investing is industrial. On what foundation?
Our identify comes from information. Research reveals that including extra feminine entrepreneurs to the African economic system might raise GDP by as much as 5%, and that numerous groups can ship a 35% increased return than all-male groups when the enjoying discipline is stage. Our job is to assist stage it.
Our buyers anticipate aggressive monetary returns, as they might from some other enterprise fund. We compete for capital with gender-agnostic funds. We care about impression, together with job creation, and we would like it alongside robust monetary returns.
You see this in our portfolio. We first made 16 small investments, which I name our monitor file builders, and Complete Farmer was one of them. After our anchor investment, we made two new investments and three follow-ons. We now have 18 investments and a zero per cent failure charge. A couple of are struggling, and none has folded, and we’re in 12 months 4, going into 12 months 5. These are unrealised features, and the fund total sits at about 2x.
Agritech exits are uncommon. What did Complete Farmer do in a different way?
Part of it was deliberate, and a part of it was timing. Agritech is difficult to scale as a result of provide chains are fragmented, working capital wants are completely different, and operations are advanced.
Complete Farmer did greater than construct an app for farmers. It constructed a full industrial provide chain platform that solved actual issues on each side of the market. Connecting manufacturing to predictable demand was uncommon.
It additionally had robust management and powerful execution, and it confirmed industrial viability pretty early. I’m but to see an answer out there as full as theirs. They have opponents in particular person verticals, and constructing the complete platform is what units them aside.
Why did you make investments?
They met our core standards: pan-African, tech-enabled, early-stage, and gender lens. They had been fixing an issue on each side of the market, and so they had a robust founder.
Desmond was not positioning itself as a gender-lens firm. When we regarded intently, the robust feminine buyer base was virtually incidental. We noticed a approach so as to add worth by serving to them make that intentional and by serving to with groups and governance. We had been a small investor working alongside others, so I don’t declare his success is due to us. But we knew the place we might assist an organization that was already rising strongly.
Why did you promote in March?
It was the proper time, and it made industrial sense. When Complete Farmer was elevating its subsequent spherical, we thought-about doubling down, however the valuation was past our vary. Anything we might add would have been too small to matter.
We did focus on staying in for an even bigger exit later. We won’t ever know the way that may have turned out. There was additionally a strategic cause. Our goal as a fund is no less than 3 times the cash on invested capital, and this exit exceeded it. As a first-time fund that’s nonetheless fundraising and heading into its harvest interval, we would have liked to indicate that we will ship exits. Going by an actual exit course of was additionally a studying expertise.
We didn’t promote as a result of we lacked religion within the firm. They had been one of our strongest performers and nonetheless have potential. It was a industrial determination, a fundraising determination and a disciplined capital allocation determination.
Who purchased your stake?
We can’t disclose the client due to confidentiality agreements. It was a secondary transaction, and we bought our whole place.
Which different portfolio firms are near an exit?
We are nonetheless in our investment interval, and our focus is on deploying capital and doubling down on our strongest performers. We will make investments fairly aggressively over the following 18 months. We maintain assessing liquidity, and generally the market approaches us to ask whether or not we’ll promote a place, however we’re not actively chasing exits. Give us two or three years, after which we will likely be considering severely about them.
What help do you give founders past capital?
We are entrepreneurs investing in entrepreneurs, and now we have a structured worth creation methodology. We run portfolio group classes for peer studying. One of our firms has made two acquisitions and walked the others by the way it did them. We additionally work with every firm on what it wants at this stage, reminiscent of constructing groups, governance buildings and methods.
Our anchor, the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund, provides a second layer of technical help for our portfolio, each money and in-kind. Through us, firms reminiscent of Complete Farmer can attain help they might not in any other case get.
We additionally lead by instance on the gender lens. One feminine founder instructed me she doesn’t suppose twice about sending me a WhatsApp message at 10 pm, whereas she would fear about it being misinterpret if she despatched it to a male fund supervisor. The stage of sexual harassment feminine founders face when pitching is a systemic drawback that now we have to speak about, and many don’t really feel secure in rooms the place no person seems to be like them.
I had a child within the final two and a half years, and I used to be fundraising whereas pregnant. Many of our founders instructed me they didn’t know that was potential. A feminine founder elevating whereas pregnant will get requested how dedicated she actually is or whether or not her life will change after the newborn. A male founder not often faces these questions. We construct help for these realities into how we work, earlier than and after we make investments.
What was fundraising like as a first-time supervisor?
Tough. Fund managers have to boost from LPs earlier than we will make investments, simply as founders elevate to develop. Fatou and I are each first-time fund managers.
When I conceived Five35 round 2021, the market was in its heyday, with a number of liquidity on the continent. Then the capital winter hit. We began with formidable targets, and we needed to adapt and intention for a smaller fund.
I went to my very own community first. I regarded for robust ladies, usually executives, who had made cash and invested in property or shares, or as angels, however had by no means thought-about enterprise capital as an asset class or invested as an LP.
Through what I name the 35 Club, we took cheques from $35,000 upwards, principally from ladies, and raised our first $1 million. Small cheques from people would by no means get us to a fund of $15 million or $20 million, and so they allow us to make our first investments and construct a monitor file. When we approached establishments, we might reply the query each first-time supervisor will get: what’s your monitor file?
That led to our anchor investment from the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund, and different buyers got here in round it. We are actually in what we name the ultimate circle, with a small allocation is left, and we hope to shut within the subsequent three to 6 months. Would I’ve favored to boost extra? Yes. The market has not allowed it but.
How do you construction your investments?
We are a pure fairness fund and don’t do debt. Our most popular early-stage instrument is a SAFE, and that’s how we first invested in Complete Farmer and most of our different firms.
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