Pan-African early-stage VC company Ventures Platform has completed its fund at $46 million to invest in more "category-leading" businesses throughout Africa.
The eleven-person company has been in operation for six years, and in December last year, they went to the market to seek $40 million for this fund. According to the creator and general partner Kola Aina, the decision to include so many limited partners from Africa in the first close was purposeful.
"For us, it was strategic, getting local capital for our first close. "But the second close, as you will see, will be from global funds of funds and DFIs, where we’ve got commitments," he said in the December interview. "Still, ultimately, as much as foreign capital is critical, I think it’s in the interest of foreign capital to be in bed with local capital from a derisking standpoint."
Ventures Platform not only succeeded in raising more money than it had planned, but it also successfully identified its next round of limited partners. Among the most recent Limited Partners (LPs) in the fund are Standard Bank, Africa's biggest bank by assets, as well as the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the British International Investment (BII), Proparco with FISEA, and AfricaGrow, a fund of funds managed by Allianz Global Investors. A to Z Impact, a social impact business, brings together corporations, commercial banks, global institutional investors, and high-net-worth individuals as limited partners (HNIs).
Fintech, insurtech, health tech, edtech, agritech, enterprise SaaS, digital infra bets, and digital talent accelerators are just some of the areas where Ventures Platform has invested since its 2016 inception. Marketforce, Mono, PiggyVest, and two of YC's most valuable African businesses, Nomba and Reliance HMO, are among the companies that have passed through its doors.
Most of the money was spent before the seed was even planted. However, since the first close of this fund, Ventures Platform has stepped up its game by writing Series A checks for its portfolio companies, some of which can directly access follow-on capital (Series B) from the firm's limited partners. Ventures Platform made a complete exit during Paystack's sale to Stripe.
According to Aina, the Abuja and Lagos-based early-stage firm plan to take the helm in pre-seed and seed rounds with an average investment of $250,000 and to participate in Series A rounds with an average investment of more than $1 million, as well as write follow-on checks totaling more than $2 million.
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