based in Lagos Ventures Platformone of Africa’s most active early-stage investors, has raised $64 million so far for its second fund, targeting an eventual close of $75 million, founding partner Cola Aina he tells TechCrunch.
Among the investors is the Nigerian government, through Investment in Digital and Creative Businesses program (iDICE).marking the first time this government has invested in a VC fund. This is significant as Nigeria’s burgeoning startup community is home to the largest number of unicorn startups on the continent.
Other limited partners in Ventures Platform’s second fund include IFC, British International Investment (BII), Proparco, Standard Bank, MSMEDA and AfricaGrow, along with European family offices such as Alder Tree Investment and prominent global backers such as former Y Combinator CEO Michael Seibel. Aina says 70% of investors from her previous fund returned.
The choice of this company from Nigeria for a first investment is perhaps not surprising. Since its inception in 2016, Ventures Platform has built a reputation for early spotting startups in the country, something it hopes to replicate in other African markets.
Ventures Platform launched its first institutional fund, a $46 million vehicle, in 2022 to focus primarily on pre-seed and seed rounds.
With the second fund, the company will also pursue Series A investments while “investing with more conviction” and pursuing larger ownership stakes, Aina said. This should be good news for founders in the area, as Series A funding became more difficult after that years of leaving Silicon Valley companies.
While Ventures Platform plans to deepen its presence in Nigeria, the company has started establishing a presence in French-speaking West Africa and North Africa, regions where it has already made some investments, to gain early access to promising deals.
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So far, the Pan-African venture capital firm has funded more than 90 startups across the continent. Most of these investments, the firm says, are “painkiller” businesses in fintech, health tech, agtech, edtech and AI – companies that solve non-consumer or, in simpler terms, serve markets where people have little or no access to a service.
Aina points to Visa-backed portfolio companies Moniepoint and Stripe-owned Paystack, two fintechs that have unlocked new markets for online payments and small business banking.
“A lot of small businesses couldn’t sell beyond their immediate vicinity before Paystack because they couldn’t accept online payments,” he said. “Moniepoint, on the other hand, has driven financial inclusion to the nooks and crannies of this country. This is market-making innovation.”
Other notable portfolio companies include Left Lane-backed remittance app LemFi, Gates Foundation-backed SeamlessHROmniRetail backed by Norfund, fintech Raenest backed by QED and health tech Remedial Health.
Even as innovation accelerates and funding in Africa’s tech ecosystem has topped $12 billion since 2015, stakeholders are raising new concerns about the lack of cash flow and events. This reality has made fundraising more difficult for many of the continent’s VCs, most of them emerging executives who, as a global collective, have faced a tough climate over the past two years.
Ventures Platform, however, during that time, managed to attract both local and international LPs for two funds despite market uncertainty.
“We have LPs who understand how the venture ecosystems have developed in other markets and know that we will succeed in the long term. Another reason is that we have recycled capital from our previous syndicates,” said Aina, referring to the return of four of the firm’s six vintages (including five angel syndicates) between 2016 and 20 claiming early investors2. globally based on TVPI and IRR for its vintage year.
Still facing questions about exits as well as the continent’s funding slowdown (from $5 billion in 2021 to $2 billion last year), Aina adds that Africa’s long-term potential has not dimmed and describes the continent as the “cleanest asymmetric play for non-consensus alpha.”
“If you are a global fund allocator looking for real diversification, Africa is the place,” he said. “By 2050, one in four people will be African. Our GDP growth rate is twice that of the US, and yet most of the value is still offline. The opportunity is huge if you have the patience and the local context.”
