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Launch of IPAE 2 in Paris on December 7, 2017

Investisseurs & Partenaires announced the first closing of its new fund I&P Afrique Entrepreneurs 2 (IPAE 2), at €50.3 million.

Having fully invested IPAE 1, launched in 2012 with a fund size of €54 million, Investisseurs & Partenaires decided to launch a bigger successor fund to target growing African SMEs with higher financing needs ranging from €300,000 to €3 million.

With a target size of €80 million, IPAE 2 will invest in equity and quasi-equity as a minority shareholder in 30 to 40 startups and businesses located in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian Ocean, and thus contribute to building a sustainable and productive private sector.

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The I&P family, our team, the entrepreneurs we support, our investors, said goodbye to an exceptional man who, in 2002, had the audacity to listen to his deep conviction: entrepreneurship has an essential role to play in the economic and social development of Africa and there are entrepreneurs on the continent who have all the qualities to succeed: let’s provide them with long-term capital and support that will make the difference.

Coming from the world of European private equity, knowing little about Africa, Patrice has managed to federate energies and adapt the private equity methodology to the realities of African SMEs. He has always done it with rigor, a high level of requirement, but also with a charm, a humor, an obvious pleasure, a generosity, which created a powerful dynamic in favor of the African SMEs, whose scope even surprised him!

Pierre Daubert, a consultant and specialist in financial inclusion, friend of Patrice and I&P, publishes this month a book on the creation and evolution of Investisseurs & Partenaires from 2002 to 2011. The book highlights the originality of his approach, well expressed in this title: The intuition of Africa.

Jean-Michel Severino, who took over from Patrice at the head of I&P, also paid tribute to the founder of the company at the event organized on December 6, 2017 to celebrate I&P’s anniversary: “The first invention of Patrice Hoppenot is modern Africa, that of entrepreneurs and growth. In the early 2000s, the continent is just emerging from structural adjustment. Talks about the continent are all about budget constraints and poverty. At this moment, however, Patrice sees an Africa rising, the one we live with every day: an Africa that undertakes, an Africa eager for recognition, independence, a creative Africa.”

Today, as Investisseurs & Partenaires celebrates its 15 anniversary, 80 African entrepreneurs have been supported in 15 countries, 6 African investment funds will soon be created, our team has more than 40 professionals including 20 in Africa. We are proud to continue the action initiated by Patrice, and we will always seek to lead it with the same rigor and the same generosity.

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