Women-focused private equity fund Alitheia IDF has raised $100 million to support “gender-diverse businesses” in Africa. This news follows just one year after raising $75 million, TechCrunch reports. Participating investors include the African Development Bank, Bank of Industry Nigeria, FinDev Canada, Dutch Good Growth Fund, and the European Investment Bank. Closing the round, European Investment Bank (EIB) committed $24.6 million. The goal of the funding is to combat the present financial gap for women-led businesses in the continent. According to a report, “Female single founders and female-only founding teams have raised less than 1% of the total raised on the continent this year so far.” “Globally, women have tremendous purchasing power as consumers and controllers of household economics. In the same vein, women entrepreneurs have a significant presence in Africa’s SME sector with African women making up 58% of the continent’s self-employed population. However, despite this...