Africa’s leading seed-stage fund, Ventures Platform, has closed its second institutional fund at $84 million (Sh1.3 billion), beating its original $75 million target and marking one of the continent’s larger venture raises this year.
The close comes just three years after Fund I wrapped up, and against a markedly more cautious global venture backdrop. The oversubscribed raise signals growing institutional confidence in Africa’s innovation economy, even as overall funding to the continent’s startups has slowed sharply this year.
New institutional investors joining the fund include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Norway’s development finance institution Norfund, Alphatron, and Ashesi University Foundation, alongside a consortium of new family offices.
They join existing limited partners from the first close, among them Nigeria’s Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (iDICE) programme, the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Standard Bank South Africa, British International Investment (BII), Proparco through the EU-backed Choose Africa VC programme, the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA), AfricaGrow and Alder Tree Investment.
With the fund now closed, Ventures Platform said it would deepen its focus on pre-seed to Series A investments, while retaining capacity to follow on in later rounds for its stronger-performing portfolio companies.
“This fund is ultimately not about the capital we’ve raised, but about the entrepreneurs we’re privileged to be able to back,” said Kola Aina, Founding and Managing Partner at Ventures Platform. He said the firm was seeing “a new generation of founders building enduring companies with greater technical depth, stronger governance, bigger ambition and a clear understanding of the markets they serve.”
EBRD’s Managing Director of Equity, Dirk Werner, said the investment was aimed at strengthening market infrastructure for African startups. “Venture capital remains underdeveloped relative to the scale of entrepreneurial activity across the continent,” he said.
Over more than a decade, Ventures Platform has backed companies including _able, OmniRetail, PiggyVest, Raenest, Seamless Technologies (formerly SeamlessHR) and Moniepoint, giving it one of the more established track records among Africa-focused early-stage funds.
The raise comes at a time when African startup funding overall has weakened. Kenya, for instance, lost its position as the continent’s top funding destination in the first half of 2026, with inflows falling behind Egypt and Nigeria, according to data from Africa: The Big Deal.
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