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Half of Côte d’Ivoire’s Top Funded Startups in 2024 Share One Creator. What Venture Studios Reveal About Africa’s Tech Future

Udoh Charles

Image: Unknown Ventures

In a global economy navigating significant turbulence, access to capital has become a critical challenge for startups. The downturn in funding, acutely felt in Africa with a substantial drop in 2024 compared to the previous year, has led to a shift in investor focus. Speculative bets are out; demonstrated value, validated business models, and clear paths to profitability are in. This challenging environment is highlighting the potential of a structured approach to company creation: the venture studio.

The concept isn’t entirely new — credited to Bill T. Gross with the founding of Idealab in 1996 — but its contemporary relevance is growing. Globally, the number of venture studios is estimated at around 560. However, despite increased interest from corporations and investors, a common point of discussion remains the precise definition of a venture builder and how it truly differs from other models like accelerators and incubators.

Defining the Builders: Venture Studios vs. Other Ecosystem Players

Venture studios, also known as venture builders or startup studios, are distinct entities focused on systematically creating companies from scratch. They leverage internal resources to generate and validate ideas, build initial products, and then often recruit founders to lead the ventures. This contrasts significantly with accelerators and incubators, which primarily support external startups with pre-existing ideas or products.

Here’s a breakdown of the key differences, based on common definitions, though acknowledging that models can sometimes overlap in practice:

Global examples cited in the text illustrate various applications of the venture building concept, including corporate initiatives like BP’s Launchpad and National Grid Partners (which combines a CVC fund with venture building). Other examples like Engie New Business Factory, Enagas Emprende, and Kamet Ventures by AXA (noted as a corporate startup studio) show the model’s adoption across different industries and structures.

The Strategic Advantage in a Tight Market

This venture building model holds particular relevance in the current economic climate gripping Africa. Alex de Bruyn, CEO of South African venture-building company Let’sCreate, highlights how the challenging environment is forcing a shift in investment criteria. With startup failures rising globally and funding in Africa seeing significant drops, investors are prioritising sustainable unit economics and clear paths to profitability over unvalidated projections.

De Bruyn argues that venture building’s focus on establishing strong foundations, validating demand early, and building businesses based on repeatable playbooks is precisely what’s needed. By providing comprehensive operational assistance alongside capital, venture builders help founders navigate volatility and achieve customer-backed growth. This makes the resulting ventures more resilient and attractive to the discerning capital available today, positioning venture building as a potent “new onramp” for venture capital.

Africa’s Evolving Venture Studio Landscape

Across the continent, a growing number of entities are operating using venture studio principles, albeit sometimes blended with other models.

Côte d’Ivoire’s Mstudio

In Côte d’Ivoire, Mstudio stands out as a significant venture-building company. It has played a key role in the country’s startup ecosystem. In 2024, five of the country’s top ten funded startups were built by Mstudio, suggesting its effectiveness in generating investment-ready ventures. These include:

Adanian Labs (Pan-Africa) — The Ecosystem Architect

With hubs in Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, South Africa, and Nigeria, Adanian Labs aims to build 300 startups by 2029. It also runs AI and blockchain training centers to nurture tech talent.

Portfolio Standouts:

Purple Elephant Ventures (Kenya) — Tourism-Tech Specialist

PEV recently secured $5M, the largest seed round for an African tourism-tech venture builder. Its ventures include Nomad Africa (travel discovery) and Kijani Supplies (eco-friendly hospitality procurement).

Aions (South Africa) — The Telkom-Backed Survivor

Aions is one of South Africa’s most compelling venture studio success stories — but its path was anything but assured. Launched with no institutional backing and nearly shuttered within its first year, the studio was saved by a last-minute ESD investment from Telkom that arrived just in time to pay salaries. Since then, Aions has built and backed 11 startups, including Franc, Delivery Ka Speed, and The Awareness Company — ventures that have gone on to raise millions, win awards, and expand across the continent. Today, Aions operates with a multi-entity structure spanning tech, finance, and social impact, and is increasingly seen not just as a venture builder, but as a blueprint for sustainable startup creation in Africa’s most volatile markets.

Delta40

Launched in 2023, Delta40 combines venture building with a VC fund, focusing on energy, agri-tech, and fintech. Its expansion into Nigeria in 2025 underscores its ambition to scale across Africa.

Notable Investments:

Resilience17 (Nigeria) — The AI-Focused Builder

Formerly Berrywood, Resilience17 rebranded under Flutterwave CEO GB Agboola and launched Go Time AI, an accelerator offering up to $200K for AI startups. Its portfolio includes Klasha, Pivo, and AltSchool.

First Cohort Highlights:

Fast Forward Venture Studio (Nigeria) 

Founded by Opeyemi Awoyemi (Jobberman, Whogohost), Fast Forward takes a hands-on approach, providing $100K and operational support for startups like Bumpa (social commerce) and Dojah (identity verification). The venture studio claims 64x multiples on invested capital due to deep operational involvement.

Volund Ventures & BVS (Morocco)

The African Reality: Blended Models and Inherent Limitations

The practical application of the venture building model in Africa so far reveals complexities and certain limitations, primarily stemming from the nascent ecosystem and the blended nature of the entities operating within it:

  1. Lack of Definitional Purity and The Melange: Entities often don’t fit a single, rigid definition. Some operate as both a Venture Studio and a VC Fund, combining company creation with traditional investment. Others, structured as venture studios and funds, also run accelerator programs targeting external ventures. This blending of models complicates the concept; founders and investors might face unclear expectations regarding the level of operational control the studio exerts, the typical duration of support, the equity structure, and the primary goals compared to a ‘pure’ studio or accelerator model. This melange is a significant nuance of the African venture building landscape.
  2. Model is New and Evolving: The venture building model is still relatively new and continuously evolving globally. In the African context, this means there’s less historical data, fewer established playbooks, and potentially less widespread understanding compared to more mature ecosystems or the more common accelerator model. Success relies heavily on the specific implementation by each studio.
  3. External Market Hurdles Remain: While venture studios aim to build resilient companies, they operate within the same difficult external environment affecting all startups. The challenging economic climate, reduced investor risk appetite, and the reality that only the most resilient startups will survive represent significant external limitations that even a well-built venture must overcome. The studio model mitigates risk but does not eliminate it.
  4. Ecosystem Challenges Addressed: Significant hurdles exist within the African ecosystem, such as limited access to capital, infrastructure, and technical expertise. These are problems that venture studios attempt to mitigate through the support they provide, highlighting the difficult operating environment rather than being limitations inherent to the studio model itself.

These nuances mean that while the promise of venture building — systematically creating robust companies — is high, founders and investors engaging with African venture studios must understand that the models can be varied and are still adapting to local conditions and ecosystem realities.

The Path Ahead

While the venture studio model is still evolving globally and in Africa, the examples emerging from Côte d’Ivoire and other regions of Africa suggest a promising path forward. By systematically building companies with strong fundamentals, validating market demand early, and providing robust operational support, venture studios are creating a new class of resilient businesses.

In an investment climate that rewards substance over hype, these “startup labs” are proving their ability to generate ventures attractive to sophisticated capital. For investors looking to back the next wave of successful African tech companies, the pipeline being built by venture studios warrants close attention. They are not just launching startups; they are crafting businesses designed for the current market reality, potentially shaping the future of tech across the continent.

Udoh Charles

Charles has carved a niche at the forefront of Africa’s booming tech scene. With years of experience, Udoh has become a go-to expert for multi-million dollar deals in venture capital, private equity, and intellectual property across a vast landscape — from Delaware and New York to Singapore and South Africa. But his expertise extends beyond just the legalese. Udoh is also a corporate governance, data privacy, and tax whiz. An award-winning writer and researcher, he’s passionate about chronicling Africa’s startup story, cementing his position as a true pioneer in the field.

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