Last Tuesday, Investors & Partners (I&P) announced the success of a first fundraising of 41 million euros (47.7 million dollars) for its new fund, I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs 3 (IPAE 3).

The IPAE 3 fund aims for a final size of 70 million euros, with a second closing scheduled for the second half of 2026. In the meantime, I&P will continue its due diligence and initiate discussions with potential new investors.

The fund plans to invest in 15 to 20 SMEs, in taking minority or semi-market participations ranging from 1 to 5 millions of euros. The targeted sectors are education, health, energy, agriculture and agribusiness, financial services, logistics and manufacturing industry.

This new fund is a continuation of model established by IPAE 1 in 2012 and IPAE 2 in 2017. These previous funds have invested a total of 146 million euros in 56 SMEs, 68% of which were in countries the least advanced or fragile. They also allowed 17 outings. These funds aim to fill the financing gap for African SMEs, these companies too big for venture capital but too small for traditional private equity and which often require a operational support.