JULIA PRICE, H’24
Pay-as-you-grow capital for South African businesses with no equity dilution
African small and growing businesses (SGBs) need capital to grow and are faced with two options – highly dilutive equity, which leads to a loss of community wealth and incentives to create jobs, or expensive and usually unavailable debt. Venture capital or private equity funds tend to cater to a small sliver of the African SGBs that require funding to grow, limiting capital options for all founders, which is often felt most by women or underrepresented founders.
The funding gap in southern Africa and on the continent is purported to be around $80 billion with banks able to fund just one third of the debt requirement for African businesses. There is a growing need in South Africa and on the continent to offer capital alternatives to business owners and investors.
With a background in investment banking, asset management and capital advisory, Price always wanted to merge philanthropy and commercial investing. Her purpose in co-founding Linea Capital is to connect impactful businesses with large volumes of capital in smart ways. Linea’s model is highly commercial and impactful as it aids in retaining founder equity while increasing the volume of capital in a finance-starved continent.
“Committed to connecting impactful businesses with large volumes of capital in smart ways. Equity is a precious commodity that should be kept in the hands of African founders.”
Pay-as-you-grow capital for South African businesses with no equity dilution
Linea’s revenue-based finance (RBF) model is an alternative to equity with no founder dilution. Linea provides funding to high-impact SGBs using RBF with a focus on gender and job creation and supports founders to drive revenues both locally and abroad. RBF is a fit for both high tech and traditional SGBs that cannot yet access debt from traditional funders. Linea’s blended finance stack lowers the cost of funding for SGBs and offers funders different risk-return and liquidity profiles. Linea’s differentiator is its model, pricing methodology, post-investment support and tech capability, which monitors and collects investee revenues at source.
In four years, the company has raised funding from a range of global and local funders, including USAID, the Dutch Good Growth Fund (Triple Jump) and the South African Jobs Fund. Since inception, the company has concluded 18 RBF deals with six full exits. The Linea founders have built a tech stack integration to mobilise capital at scale, collect and analyse data on SGBs in the portfolio and continue to establish a network of partners for post-investment support. Linea aims to raise $30 million to scale RBF in Southern Africa and support SGBs in their growth prospects while preserving capital in the hands of business owners.
LEARN MORE ABOUT LINEA CAPITAL
Linea Capital provides capital to growing businesses through a non-dilutive, revenue-based finance model, primarily in Southern Africa.
Revenue-based finance for Africa
ABOUT JULIA PRICE
As a co-founder and investor, Julia is passionate about funding companies while preserving equity in the hands of other founders. An investment banker by training, she has experience in funding models, investment structuring and asset management and actively seeks new, innovative ways to build bridges between capital providers and entrepreneurs in South Africa and the African continent.
Julia has a Bachelor of Business Science and a Postgraduate Degree in Accounting Honors from the University of Cape Town. She is a Chartered Accountant and spent a year at Stanford University studying Intensive Studies in Technology & Entrepreneurship. She co-Founded Linea Capital in 2016. She is also an Investment Committee member of the Launch Africa Venture Fund and Five35 Ventures.
I AM A HARAMBEAN
Price has long admired the Harambean Alliance for its authentic focus on the risk-takers and problem-solvers who sacrificed safe harbors for the open seas of entrepreneurship. The close bond of founders seeking to support each other to change the course of their collective futures and those of their communities is something she longs for as a founder herself.
“My vision is to build a business that can raise vast volumes of capital and deploy it to the most impactful businesses in Africa using smart structuring and technology.”