Apis Partners, a London-based private equity firm, has reached a first close of over $157m on its debut fund focused on financial technology startups in Africa and South Asia.

Apis Growth Fund was launched in June 2014 by Matteo Stefanel, previously a partner in emerging markets private equity firm Abraaj, and Udayan Goyal, a founder of fintech investment and advisory firm Anthemis Group.

Stefanel said: "We strongly believe that the next wave of business-model innovation in financial services will come from growth markets.”

“As income in these markets continue to rise, so will demand for financial services, representing an unique opportunity for those entrepreneurs creating innovative and cost-effective solutions. We aim to back those entrepreneurs," he said.

The fund is aiming to raise between $250m and $300m, and is targeting investments into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and mid-caps active in the financial services sector in Africa and Asia.

The fund is targeting fintech firms working in areas such as payments, savings and investments, credit and insurance within Africa and South Asia.

In addition to the growing interest in fintech investment, the fund is seeking to exploit the policies of financial inclusion in growth markets.

Goyal said that of the 2.5 billion unbanked adults globally (over half of the world’s adults), 2.2 billion reside in growth markets: “Our focus on advancing inclusion in the formal financial sector in growth markets is both good business and the right thing to do.”

“Financial inclusion has a direct, measurable impact on GDP growth as well as offering an enormous, untapped market, expanding further thanks to the confluence of demographic and macroeconomic growth factors. We are firmly convinced that Financial Services will deliver in the next decade the same level of return on investment as the telecom boom of Africa and South Asia of the last two decades: we aim to bring that opportunity to our investors,” he said.

The fund has attracted investment from a diverse range of institutional investors from Europe, North America and Africa, including Intesa Sanpaolo and Old Mutual, as well as leading developmental finance Institutions such as CDC (UK), the European Investment Bank, FMO (Netherlands) and Swedfund (Sweden).

Investors have been attracted by Apis’ offering of a unique investment thesis, its impact mandate, its attractive investment pipeline and a highly experienced team.

David Marshall, Group Strategy Director, Old Mutual Emerging Markets, said: “We are delighted to be investing in the Apis Growth Fund I as a strategic partner and working with a highly experienced investment team, to engage with some of the most innovative companies in the financial services and technology space.”

According to research by Accenture, global investment in fintech ventures tripled to $12.21bn in 2014 from $4.05bn in 2013.

Investment in financial-technology (fintech) companies grew by 201% globally in 2014, compared to 63% growth in overall venture-capital investments, confirming this sector as a “hot ticket”.

Fintech has the possibility to grow in Africa even more so than elsewhere in the world, because of the demographics and the mobile banking revolution.

For example, Africa is the continent of mobile money, accounting for more than half of the total number of mobile money wallets globally, whereas the success of Kenya's M-Pesa speaks for itself.

Gaetano Miccichè, General Manager of Intesa Sanpaolo, said: “Apis Partners’ focus on a high growth sector in growth markets, their deep expertise in the geographies and their domain knowledge in technology-enabled financial services offers our group with exposure to a unique brand of financial services innovation.”

“We are delighted to be investors in Apis, and we are confident that the fund will invest in innovative and impactful companies in Africa and Asia,” he said.