• Growing businesses. Building African communities. Driving gender diversity.

    Alitheia IDF is a pioneering gender-lens fund investing in scalable businesses to leverage the power of gender diversity as a factor for superior performance

  • About

    Alitheia IDF is a $100 million private equity fund that drives growth in African SMEs by leveraging gender-balanced businesses to generate high financial returns and social impact.

     

    A Pioneering Private Equity Fund

    The first dedicated gender lens investing fund in Africa, Alitheia IDF is a pioneering private equity fund that identifies, invests in, and grows SMEs led by gender-diverse teams to achieve solid financial returns and tangible social impact for communities in Africa.

     

    From our offices in Lagos and Johannesburg, we invest in six countries: Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Lesotho.


    We invest in sectors that engage a significant percentage of women, either as entrepreneurs, producers, distributors or consumers. Some of these sectors are: Agribusiness, Consumer Goods, Health, Education, Creative Industries, and Financial and Business services.

    Final Close Founders

    Introducing our first few investments

    Women at the Centre

    and all around

    Meet our Founding Partners and some of the businesses we support

  • Investment Strategy

    Achieving superior financial and social returns by investing in a diversified portfolio of women-owned, women-led, or women-serving SMEs

    Investment Thesis

    Central to Alitheia IDF's investment strategy is the development of well-run, well-positioned, attractive businesses where value is realized through gender diversity, good governance, and operational improvements.

     

    We are the first private equity fund manager in Africa prioritizing growth stage companies that have gender diversified management teams with the vision and potential to scale regionally and drive economic and social transformation. We invest to create superior returns by leveraging on women as successful business leaders.

  • Impact

    Impact is achieved by inclusion of women as economic participants contributing to wealth creation and social development

  • Portfolio

    Show off your projects, features, or clients in this section.

    SKLD

    Woman-owned consumer goods company that manufactures, sources and distributes education supplies and humanitarian/relief products.

    Reelfruit

    Woman-owned food and beverage/ agro-processing company that produces a range of retail packaged snacks.

    Jetstream

    Woman-owned digital Freight Forwarding company that provides a relatively frictionless cross-border trading experience

    Chika's Foods

    A food and beverage group focused on producing a range of healthy and organic consumer packaged snacks

    Psaltry International

    Psaltry is an agro cultivating/processing business that processes cassava to produce high-quality food grade starch, high-quality flour, glucose, and sorbitol as intermediate goods for manufacturers.

    Wemy Industries

    Wemy is a hygiene and personal care manufacturing company based in Nigeria. The Company produces a range of baby, adult, and feminine care products that includes baby diapers, baby wipes, adult diapers, disposable face masks, underlay pads, and maternity pads.

    SweepSouth

    A woman-owned tech platform that connects customers with home service providers including cleaners, gardeners,  laundry service, amongst others

    Ivili Loboya

    Ivili is a vertically integrated wool processor and is pioneering South Africa’s goat cashmere industry.

  • Team

    co-Founder and Principal Partner - Nigeria

    Polo Leteka is a highly accomplished and experienced entrepreneur and private equity investor. She is the Executive Director and co-Founder of IDF Capital - a South African based entrepreneurial financier and advisory firm. Through IDF Capital, Polo has contributed towards channeling investments into women owned SMEs across South Africa. Polo, an accountant by training, has experience in Public and Private sectors of South Africa in accounting and audits, corporate finance, investment banking, public policy formulation, venture capital and private equity. At a fairly young age, Polo was tasked with leading the process of developing South Africa's first ever Codes of Good Practice on Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment. With this ground breaking work, coupled with her participation in South Africa's version of the Dragons Den, speaking engagements, articles on transformation and entrepreneurship including being a co-author of an entrepreneurship book "..and for all these reasons, I'M IN...", she is a thought leader in areas of economic transformation and development, as well as a key investor in Africa's expanding SME sector.

    co-Founder and Principal Partner - South Africa

    ESG & Social Impact Manager

    Senior Associate

    Senior Investment Analyst

    Investment Manager - Nigeria

    Investment Manager

    Senior Investment Associate

    Senior Associate

    Zakiya Khan

    Investment Associate

    Investment Associate

    Molade Elodimour

    Investment Associate

    Mooketsi Diseko

    Investment Associate

  • Gender Lens Investing Toolkit

    Interested in investing using a Gender Lens? Here's a toolkit to help you get started.

  • The Blog

    IWD2023: Investing in transformative agribusiness innovations for gender equity in Africa 
    March 8, 2023
    Cassava, and many other subsistence crops have gained the – sometimes, pejorative – nickname: ‘women’s crop’ – a term that highlights the primacy and involvement of women across the cassava value chain from production, processing, distribution, and sales. By re-defining the thorny problem of...
    Alitheia IDF investment enables management to take over Club Travel Corporate 
    December 7, 2022
    Alithea IDF Fund (AIF), Africa’s first and largest gender-lens investing private equity fund, today finalised its investment into corporate travel management company, Club Travel Corporate (CTC). The investment will enable CTC’s Black women-led management team to take over the company through a...
    Lessons from Using a Gender Lens to Support Women Entrepreneurs
    November 2, 2022
    By Tokunboh Ishmael Alitheia IDF's work on gender lens investing to support women entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa has provided several important lessons for impactful gender lens investing. In this article, Alitheia IDF's co-founder and Principal Partner (Nigeria), 'Tokunboh Ishmael, shares...
    Alitheia IDF leads $11 million investment round in SweepSouth
    September 27, 2022
    26 September 2022: SweepSouth, an online home services platform with presence across Africa, today announced that it has completed an US$11m investment round led by Alitheia IDF (AIF), Africa’s first and largest gender-lens private equity fund. The size of the round, which is SweepSouth’s...
    #BreakTheBias: What is good for African women is good for Africa
    March 8, 2022
      Africa’s regional economy is at an inflection point as the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is expected to formalise sectors and expand the economic possibilities of Africa by enabling intra-regional trade and opening a consumer market of over 1.3 billion people with a GDP of $3.4...
    EIB-supported gender lens investment fund Alitheia IDF announces final close at $100 million
    December 15, 2021
      PRESS RELEASE  The management of Alitheia IDF (AIF), Africa’s first women-led and women-focused private equity fund, has announced the final close of the $100 million fund with European Investment Bank (EIB) joining as the closing investor with $24.6million. With this final close, Alitheia...
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