In this new podcast episode of One Million Euro Stories, Iris Mettendaf speaks to the founder of Five35 Ventures Hema Vallabh.

Hema Vallabh is an engineer, turned entrepreneur, turned investor who is the founding partner of Five35 Ventures, which is a Pan African female focused fund investing in seed stage tech enabled businesses across the continent. 

The name of Five35 Ventures speaks to the opportunity. Hema says: “Research shows that if we add more women entrepreneurs to the African ecosystem, we could see a potential 5% GDP uplift by leveraging the 35% higher ROI that diverse teams could achieve over all male teams if the playing field was leveled.

Our job really is to make sure that women have access to the same opportunities, access to capital, access to networks and access to support. The mandate of the fund is to invest in Pan African female-focused tech enabled businesses at a seed stage.

Listen to this new podcast episode and the journey of Hema Vallabh as a fund manager.