Activity around African venture capital firms raising funds continues to increase as we head towards the end of the year. In the latest development, Abuja- and Lagos-based Ventures Platform is today announcing the first close of its $40 million pan-African fund.
The fund, founded by one of Nigeria’s most active early-stage investors, Kola Aina, has made 69 investments since 2016. Ventures Platform’s news is also coming a day after another pan-African VC firm 4DX Ventures secured the final close of its $60 million fund.
Aina, the firm’s founding and general partner, told TechCrunch on a call that when he started the firm, he used his own money for the first set of investments made. Subsequently, Ventures Platform experimented with an accelerator model, where it gave out standardized checks of $20,000 to pre-seed to seed-stage startups in exchange for 10% equity.
In 2017, the firm took outside capital for the first time and formed syndicates. Within this two-year period, some of the startups it invested in included Piggyvest, Paystack, Kudi and Thrive Agric.
“We wanted to perfect our style of finding high-performing companies early before they become obvious and backing them with everything we bring to the table from our experience as operators ourselves,” Aina told TechCrunch over a call.
“We didn’t want to go out and try to fundraise when we didn’t really have evidence that we could make money out of this.”
Last year October, Ventures Platform became one of the local investors that cashed out from Paystack’s $200 million+ exit to Stripe. With a few other secondary exits under its belt, Aina said he felt this was the perfect time for the firm “to go to the market and raise its first institutional fund.”
Credit and More:
https://techcrunch.com/2021/12/16/ventures-platform-announces-first-close-of-its-40m-pan-african-fund/
