List of African Startup Investors

Funding has long been a major obstacle to growth for African startups, but that’s beginning to change. One challenge has been because the lion share of capital going into African startups, originates from international investors, who sometimes might not have as much market knowledge. Despite this, in 2018, African startups raised $1.2bn, a 100%+ growth over the previous year, most of which originated from outside the continent.

Another challenge has been that with certain overseas investors not being able to deploy the right sums (volumes) into the right opportunities, not much of the global vc pie has been deployed in the continent beyond grants and some impact investing. According to Orange Digital Ventures, African VCs raised $1.2bn in 2018, compared to Europe ($23bn), Asia ($93bn) and US ($131bn).

The good news is that more funds are being formed to invest specifically in African Startups.

New African Venture Capital Investors

Some recent announcements include Africainvest’s partnership with Cathay Innovation to launch a new Africa focused tech venture fund with a target raise of $168 million. Seedstars has also announced a partnership with First Growth Ventures, to launch a $100 million sub-Saharan Africa venture fund. Let’s have a look at other VC investors that invest in African startups.

Greycroft Partners

They led the follow-on round in BitPesa, which took the startup’s total funding beyond the US$10 million mark. Also led Nigeria’s Flutterwave's US$10 million round.

500 Startups

Have backed the likes of Printivo, MailHaven and MobileForms via its accelerator, but was active elsewhere too. It was also involved in previous Aella Credit funding round, and used its 500 Falcons fund to invest in Egyptian companies Mumm, Breadfast and Eventtus.

Accion

Have invested in the likes of Nigeria’s Lidya and South Africa’s AllLife, among others.

Algebra Ventures

Egypt’s “largest ever tech-focused VC fund”, Sometimes investing with 500 Startups.

Y Combinator

Like 500 Startups, Y Combinator has been taking an increasingly large number of African tech startups into its programmes, and investing further down the line as well. WaystoCap, Kudi, Releaf, Oolu and VertoFX .

Kalon Venture Partners

The company seeks out startups who are “dis-intermediating various industries through disruptive tech solutions”, and put money into Snapnsave, The Sun Exchange and i-Pay in 2017.

Ventures Platform

They’ve become a major player in Nigeria, Ventures Platform only looks like getting more active after expanding from Abuja to Lagos and growing its cheque size. They have backed Printivo, Kudi, GeroCare, Kangpe and Accounteer.

A tool to find African Startup Investors

Depending on what funding stage you’re at, you might be able to find some relevant African Startup Investors, using this search tool we came across. As we continue to hear about more investment funds being set up in the space, we’ll look to continue to keep you updated.