A new cohort of venture capital and private equity firms is reshaping Africa’s investment landscape. Led by women, these funds are moving beyond traditional investment theses to champion a dual mandate of financial returns and tangible impact. With a sharp focus on gender-lens investing, climate solutions, and inclusive growth, they are directing capital to early-stage, often overlooked, startups and SMEs across the continent.
While many are emerging managers raising their first or second funds, they collectively represent a powerful shift in the ecosystem. They are deploying a range of flexible financing tools — from convertible notes to revenue-based financing — to support a new generation of entrepreneurs. Here’s a look at 30 of the key firms driving this change.
Aisiki Capital
- Leadership: Janice Rudo Sambaza & Rufaro Maunze — Bhebhe
- Focus: A seed and early-stage SME growth fund for women and youth-led businesses in Southern Africa. The firm operates with a gender and climate lens, targeting sectors like inclusive finance, education, healthcare, clean energy, and manufacturing.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $10M fund offering convertible debt and revenue-based financing.
Alitheia IDF
- Leadership: Polo Leteka & Tokunboh Ishmael
- Focus: A pioneering private equity fund investing in women-focused, growth-stage companies in Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, and Zambia. It aims to address the over $42bn investment gap between male and female entrepreneurs.
- Fund Details: Its $100M fund is the largest gender-lens private equity fund in Africa.
- Portfolio Highlights: Jetstream Africa, ReelFruit Ltd, SKLD, AV Light Steel, Chika’s Food.
Altree Kadzi Gender Climate Fund
- Leadership: Jenni Chamberlain
- Focus: Provides growth capital to women-founded, women-led, or women-oriented businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa (excluding South Africa). The fund actively helps companies implement gender-equity and climate-smart policies.
- Fund Details: Raising a $50M blended finance fund offering equity, debt, and other hybrid instruments.
Anza Capital
- Leadership: Audrey Verhaeghe & Saskia Nysschens
- Focus: Investing in scalable tech startups from Seed to Series A in Southern and Eastern Africa. Anza leverages its connection to the SA Innovation Summit and TechTribe Accelerator for pipeline and support.
- Fund Details: Raising a $15M feeder fund offering convertible notes and equity.
- Portfolio Highlights: Yebo Fresh, Welo Health, Qwili, Koa Academy.
Aruwa Capital Management
- Leadership: Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes
- Focus: One of Africa’s few women-owned and led private equity funds, Aruwa invests in early-stage growth companies in Nigeria and Ghana. Its gender-lens strategy targets businesses serving women or led by diverse teams.
- Fund Details: Raising a $40M Fund II after a successful $20M Fund I.
- Portfolio Highlights: Lifestores, Koolboks SAS, Taeillo, Crowdforce Inc.
ATG Samata
- Leadership: Lelemba Phiri & Lisa G. Thomas
- Focus: The Parity Fund I invests in early-stage, scalable businesses in Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia that advance opportunities for women and promote diversity.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $50M fund for early-stage and high-growth SMEs.
- Portfolio Highlights: Neopenda, ReelFruit, SolarTaxi, Uncover.
Athena Capital
- Leadership: Kaylene Alvarez
- Focus: Provides uncollateralized, flexible, cash-flow-based venture debt to women-led and climate-positive SMEs in Africa and Indonesia.
- Fund Details: Targeting $2M to $8M. The fund has reached its first close.
- Portfolio Highlights: Ecodoe, Jala, Evoware.
Betaventures
- Leadership: Amel Saidane
- Focus: A dual venture builder and VC firm investing in idea-stage B2B and B2B2C tech startups in Africa and the Middle East, with a focus on ClimateTech and enterprise SaaS.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $23M fund offering S.A.F.E. notes or convertible notes.
- Portfolio Highlights: vOYANCE, KNABU, HYDRONEXT, Rivy, Betastore.
BKR Capital
- Leadership: Lise Birikundavyi
- Focus: The Black Innovation Fund II invests in promising Black founders in the technology space, primarily in Canada (75%) but with a global mandate that includes Africa.
- Fund Details: Targeting a CAD $50M fund.
- Portfolio Highlights: Cauridor, Treepz.
Brightmore Capital
- Leadership: Ndeye Thiaw
- Focus: Empowers entrepreneurs in Francophone West Africa through early-stage private capital investments in high-potential SMEs and startups.
- Fund Details: Targeting a €30M seed, venture, and impact fund.
- Portfolio Highlights: Keur Imagination Services, Proxalis, Prozen Industries.
Chui Ventures
- Leadership: Not specified.
- Focus: A Pan-African seed fund with a gender-inclusive focus backing local tech founders.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $30M fund. It has reached its first close.
- Portfolio Highlights: PaidHR, Tuteria, Lami, Flex Financial.
EdVentures
- Leadership: Dalia Ibrahim (as CEO of parent company Nahdet Misr Group)
- Focus: The ed-tech focused corporate venture capital (CVC) arm of the Nahdet Misr publishing company. It invests in innovative ed-tech startups, primarily in Egypt.
- Fund Details: An active CVC arm that invests through its accelerator program. Its portfolio now includes 22 companies.
- Portfolio Highlights: El Kheta, Saikoro, The Copywriter, Techy App, SchoolZ.
FirstCheck Africa
- Leadership: Eloho Omame
- Focus: Makes pre-seed and seed investments in high-growth tech and tech-enabled startups founded or co-founded by women, with a focus on Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $10M venture fund.
- Portfolio Highlights: Tushop, Pivo, Healthtracka, Foondamate, Uncover.
First Circle Capital
- Leadership: Selma Ribica & Agnes Aistleitner Kisuule
- Focus: A pan-African venture capital fund backing pre-seed and seed-stage fintech startups. The firm looks beyond payments to invest in financial infrastructure, insurtech, regtech, and climate fintech.
- Fund Details: Targeting $25M for its Africa Fund I, with backing from institutions like the IFC and FSD Africa Investments.
- Portfolio Highlights: Has made 13 investments across seven African countries in verticals like SaaS for financial institutions and alternative lending.
Five35 Ventures
- Leadership: Hema Vallabh
- Focus: A Pan-African seed-stage VC fund investing in female-focused tech startups. Five35 is the capital arm of the WomHub ecosystem, providing unique deal flow and post-investment support.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $30M fund. It has reached its first close.
- Portfolio Highlights: Kasha, Shuttlers, Zindi, BuuPass, RxAll.
Ingressive Capital
- Leadership: Maya Horgan-Famodu
- Focus: Backs high-growth, pre-seed and seed-stage tech-enabled startups across Africa. Ingressive targets B2B solutions for traditional industries as well as B2C fintech and internet companies.
- Fund Details: Currently operating a $10M fund, with average check sizes of $200k-$400k.
- Portfolio Highlights: Paystack, Tizeti, Jetstream, 54gene, OZÉ, Bamboo.
Inua Capital
- Leadership: Kim Kamarebe
- Focus: The Inua SME Fund is a gender-lens growth capital investor in high-potential SMEs in Uganda.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $10M private equity fund offering a range of instruments from equity to revenue share.
- Portfolio Highlights: Flow Uganda, Innovex.
Jambaar Capital
- Leadership: July Andraous & Nadia Seemuth
- Focus: Based in Senegal, Jambaar is a Pan-African fund investing in seed-stage impact tech startups.
- Fund Details: Raising a $3M fund. It has reached its first close.
- Portfolio Highlights: Kamioun, Meditect.
Janngo Capital
- Leadership: Fatoumata Ba
- Focus: A leading women-led VC and impact fund backing tech startups across Africa. Janngo invests in platforms that improve access to essential services, help SMEs, and create jobs for women and youth.
- Fund Details: Oversubscribed €73M fund that has reached its final close.
- Portfolio Highlights: Sabi, Expensya, and 21 other companies.
Linea Capital
- Leadership: Julia Price
- Focus: Offers revenue-based finance to early and growth-stage companies, initially in Southern Africa, allowing founders to retain equity.
- Fund Details: A $30M permanent capital special purpose vehicle (SPV).
- Portfolio Highlights: SweepSouth, FlexClub, Wupperthal Rooibos 1830.
Openseed VC
- Leadership: Maria Ro
- Focus: Provides starter funding of up to $150k to operators launching technology companies in Africa and Europe. The firm has a focus on commerce, work, health, and supports Black or African founders.
- Fund Details: A $10M venture fund that has reached its first close.
Sahara Impact Ventures
- Leadership: Yvonne Ofosu-Appiah & Mandy Nyarko
- Focus: Invests in early and growth-stage businesses at the intersection of climate change and gender disparity in West and East Africa, focusing on sustainable food systems and clean energy.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $30M to $50M venture fund.
- Portfolio Highlights: Agriarche.
Sanari Capital
- Leadership: Samantha Pokroy
- Focus: A women-led, majority Black- and women-owned private equity firm investing in growth companies from Sub-Saharan Africa (primarily South Africa) that are ready to scale regionally or globally.
- Fund Details: The Sanari 3S Growth Fund is targeting $65M to $100M and has reached a second close at $65M.
- Portfolio Highlights: LightWare LiDAR, Edulife Group, iiDENTIFii.
ShEquity
- Leadership: Pauline Koelbl
- Focus: A women-led VC firm providing smart investment for impactful, innovative, and scalable early-stage female-led businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly ECOWAS countries.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $25M fund.
- Portfolio Highlights: Shuttlers, ReelFruit, Medsaf, Ecodudu.
Unconventional Capital
- Leadership: Franziska Reh & Esther Ndeti
- Focus: Invests in early-stage businesses across East and West Africa through a funding and growth platform, using an equity-based revenue-sharing model with tickets from $10k to $50k.
- Fund Details: Targeting $75M to $100M. It has reached its first close.
Unicorn Growth Capital
- Leadership: Barbara Iyayi
- Focus: A women-led VC firm dedicated to investing in the future of FinTech, backing Seed and Series A companies building financial infrastructure across Sub-Saharan Africa.
- Fund Details: Targeting $35M to $50M. It has reached its first close.
- Portfolio Highlights: Verto, ThankUCash, FonBank, TAP, Sava.
VestedWorld
- Leadership: Nneka Eze
- Focus: Invests in early-stage companies in East and West Africa within the agriculture, consumer, and enabling technology sectors.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $20M to $50M fund. It has reached its first close.
- Portfolio Highlights: ANKA, BFREE, Sabi.
WEAV Capital
- Leadership: Amaka Okechukwu Opara
- Focus: The Women’s Enterprise Acceleration Vehicle is a women-led seed stage fund investing in high-growth tech businesses in Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, with a focus on female-led companies.
- Fund Details: Targeting a $30M venture fund.
- Portfolio Highlights: Lingawa, Agriarche, Earthbond.
WIC Capital
- Leadership: Evelyne Dioh Simpa & Thiaba Camara Sy
- Focus: A gender-focused fund investing in women-led small and growing businesses in Sénégal and Côte d’Ivoire. The fund provides capital alongside mentorship and technical assistance via the WIC Académie.
- Fund Details: Targeting a €30M growth capital fund.
- Portfolio Highlights: Kwely, Fuzion, Biobellech, Karaw International.
WomHub
- Leadership: Naadiya Moosajee
- Focus: Invests in women-led STEM (science, technology, engineering, and manufacturing) companies across Africa that have graduated from its incubator and accelerator programs.
- Fund Details: A rolling/open blended finance vehicle.
- Portfolio Highlights: Zindi, SweepSouth.
- Further reading:
- A list of Over 80 prolific venture capital firms investing in African startups [HERE]
- A list of over 140 latest investors in African startups investing in 2025 [HERE]
- A list of over 400 angel investors in African startups [HERE]