Ventures Platform, one of Africa’s most active seed-stage investors, has closed its second fund at $84 million, beating its original $75 million target. The close comes three years after the firm’s first fund and lands in a global venture environment that has grown markedly more risk-averse.
The Lagos firm said the raise was oversubscribed, a signal that institutional investors are still willing to commit capital to Africa’s startup ecosystem despite a broader pullback in venture funding worldwide since 2022.
New Backers Join the Table
Fund II brought in a set of new institutional investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Norway’s development finance institution Norfund, the investment firm Alphatron, and the Ashesi University Foundation. A group of unnamed family offices also joined at the final close.
They join returning investors from the first fund, including Nigeria’s iDICE program, the International Finance Corporation, Standard Bank, British International Investment, Proparco, and the Egyptian government’s small-business finance agency MSMEDA, among others.
The lineup reflects a pattern that has defined African venture capital for years: development finance institutions and impact-oriented funders make up a substantial share of the capital base, rather than traditional private limited partners. That dependence has made the ecosystem more vulnerable to shifts in donor-country priorities than venture markets in the U.S. or Europe.
What the Fund Will Do
Ventures Platform said it will use the capital to lead and catalyze pre-seed to Series A rounds, with reserves to follow on in later rounds for portfolio companies that perform well. The firm’s stated focus areas are broad — founders “using technology to drive economic prosperity, inclusion, and access” — without specifying particular sectors or a target number of portfolio companies for the new fund.
Kola Aina, the firm’s founding and managing partner, framed the round as validation of the founders in its portfolio rather than the firm itself, pointing to what he described as improved technical depth and governance among African startups.
The firm’s past investments include _able, OmniRetail, PiggyVest, Raenest, Seamless Technologies — formerly SeamlessHR — and Moniepoint, the Nigerian fintech that reached unicorn status in 2024.
The Context the Announcement Leaves Out
The release does not disclose how much of the $84 million has already been deployed, if any, or how many companies Ventures Platform expects to back from this fund. It also doesn’t specify a fund size comparison — Fund I’s total is not mentioned in the release, making it hard to assess how much larger, if at all, Fund II represents relative to the firm’s first vehicle.
The timing is notable. African startup funding has declined sharply from its 2021-2022 peak, with total equity funding across the continent falling in both 2023 and 2024 before showing tentative signs of stabilizing more recently.
Several African-focused funds have struggled to hit their targets or have closed smaller than planned in that stretch. Ventures Platform’s oversubscribed close — and the addition of a AAA-rated multilateral like EBRD — cuts against that trend, but the release offers no explanation for why LPs chose this fund over the many others competing for a shrinking pool of Africa-dedicated capital.
It’s also worth noting that EBRD’s mandate has historically centered on Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean; its participation here suggests an expanding appetite for African exposure among institutions that haven’t traditionally prioritized the continent, though the bank’s statement is framed in general terms about market infrastructure rather than specific to Ventures Platform’s track record.
The Bigger Picture
The close adds to a small but growing list of Africa-focused funds that have closed successfully in 2025 and 2026, even as many smaller and newer managers report longer fundraising cycles. For founders on the continent, the more relevant question may be less about how much capital funds like this raise and more about how quickly — and to how many companies — it gets deployed.
Ventures Platform has not said when it expects to make its first investments from Fund II or shared a target portfolio size, leaving open how much of the $84 million will translate into checks written this year.
