Five35 Ventures’ First Exit Highlights Returns From Gender-Lens Investing in Africa
Five35 Ventures, an Africa-focused, gender-lens investment vehicle backed by the Mastercard Foundation Africa Growth Fund, has completed its first portfolio exit, generating a 3.5x multiple on invested capital and a 38% internal rate of return over four years through its investment in Ghanaian agritech company Complete Farmer.
The exit is a meaningful milestone and proof point of the commercial potential of both Five35 Ventures’ and the Africa Growth Fund’s investment strategy. It offers an early, tangible example of how the Fund’s model of backing African-led investment vehicles can translate capital into business growth and financial returns, with wider economic impact along the way.
The Africa Growth Fund is a US$200 million fund-of-funds designed to strengthen African-led, women-led investment vehicles and enable them to invest in businesses with the potential to contribute to inclusive growth and job creation. Rather than investing directly in individual companies, the Fund works through investment vehicles such as Five35 Ventures, supporting the managers and strategies that can channel capital to promising businesses across the continent.
From early-stage investment to exit
Five35 Ventures invested in Complete Farmer in April 2022 and exited in March 2026. During the investment period, the company’s valuation increased from US$6 million to US$49 million, resulting in a 3.5x return for Five35 Ventures.
Complete Farmer connects farmers to markets while providing access to agricultural inputs and technical support, alongside contracted buyers. Its model is designed to address some of the structural challenges farmers face in securing reliable demand and fair pricing, while helping buyers build more predictable and transparent agricultural supply chains.
The investment therefore offers more than a financial performance story, providing a view into how capital deployed through an African investment manager can support the growth of businesses addressing real market constraints and creating opportunities across their value chains. It provides an early validation of Five35 Ventures’ ability to identify high-potential African businesses, invest at an early stage and support them through a period of significant growth to liquidity.
Applying a gender lens to where impact happens
Five35 Ventures’ gender-lens approach looks beyond ownership and leadership to consider how women participate in and benefit from the businesses it backs, whether as employees, suppliers, customers or participants in the wider value chain.
At the time of investment, women represented 55% of Complete Farmer’s farmer network, 80% of its post-harvest workforce and 43% of its core team.
By the time of exit, Complete Farmer had served 12,628 B2B customers and created 77 direct jobs. Women’s representation on its board had reached 50%. The company had also expanded farmer training and market access, alongside reported improvements in farmer incomes and agricultural yields.
Outcomes of this kind show how a gender lens can identify where investment contributes to broader economic participation. The measure extends beyond the number of jobs created to who is able to participate in and benefit from business growth.
Why this matters for the Fund
Five35 Ventures’ first exit is an important proof point for the Africa Growth Fund’s broader thesis: African-led investment vehicles can pursue commercial performance while investing in businesses that contribute to more inclusive economic growth.
This exit adds an important piece of evidence to the Fund’s learning on how capital can move through African investment managers into businesses with the potential to generate both financial value and impact.
As the Fund progresses, milestones such as this will help build a clearer picture of what the model can deliver, and where African-led investment vehicles can play a distinctive role in mobilising capital and supporting the business growth that drives job creation and economic opportunity across the continent.
“At Five35, we look for businesses in which commercial growth and inclusive impact reinforce one another. Complete Farmer shows how technology can strengthen African food systems, improve farmers’ access to markets and create meaningful economic opportunities for women. Achieving this result through our first exit is an important validation of our investment strategy. As we continue backing Africa’s next generation of technology-enabled businesses, this exit strengthens our conviction that gender-lens investing is not a concessionary strategy, it is a disciplined way of identifying overlooked markets, stronger business models and new sources of sustainable value.”
Hema Vallabh, General Partner at Five35 Ventures.