Speedinvest, the Vienna-based VC firm, has formalised a €40m commitment from EIB Global for a dedicated Africa venture fund, the firm announced following a signing ceremony at its Vienna headquarters attended by EIB Vice-President Karl Nehammer. The fund, registered in EIB project pipelines as the Speedinvest Africa Fund has a target size of EUR 200 million (approx. 230 USD) and will back early-stage startups deploying fintech and financial technology-enabled services across payments, lending, health, education, and mobility in both North and Sub-Saharan African markets.
The deal is structured as an equity investment into the new vehicle rather than a direct co-investment arrangement, with EIB Global taking a limited partner position at first close. The bank’s commitment is designed to catalyse additional fundraising from other institutional investors and development finance institutions at a moment when emerging-market VC fundraising has remained difficult globally.
“Africa is home to some of the most impressive entrepreneurial success stories globally. By combining local presence with Speedinvest’s global network of operators, sector expertise, and follow-on capital, we aim to help founders scale regionally and internationally.”
— Oliver Holle, CEO and Managing Partner, Speedinvest
Oliver Holle, Speedinvest’s co-founder, CEO and Managing Partner, pointed to Moove — a mobility fintech the firm backed early and which has since raised over $460m in equity and debt — as evidence of the thesis. Moove, founded in Lagos in 2020 by Ladi Delano and Jide Odunsi, has expanded to 19 markets across Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Latin America, and was pursuing a fresh $300m equity raise at a reported valuation exceeding $2bn as of late 2025.
What the fund will do
According to EIB project documentation, the Speedinvest Africa Fund will invest at the seed and Series A stage in companies using financial technology to digitalise businesses across multiple sectors. The fund’s scope explicitly includes payments, lending, banking, accounting and insurance, as well as fintech-enabled verticals such as marketplace commerce, health, education and SaaS. Geography spans both North Africa — where Speedinvest has existing exposure through Egyptian earned-wage-access platform Khazna — and Sub-Saharan markets where the firm has backed companies including Nigerian digital lender FairMoney and Kenyan logistics startup Leta.
EIB project materials describe the fund as aligned with the EU’s Global Gateway strategy, which frames African investment as a mutual-benefit objective rather than a development aid model. The bank’s rationale for participation includes an expected improvement in access to long-term finance for African SMEs, the dissemination of best practices into the continent’s VC ecosystem through knowledge-sharing, and the facilitation of cross-border technology trade within Africa and between Africa and Europe.
EIB’s expanding Africa footprint
The Speedinvest commitment sits within a broader acceleration of EIB Global’s Africa activity. In 2025, the bank deployed €3.1bn across the continent — roughly one-third of the more than €9bn it channelled globally through its international development finance arm — with SME financing and venture capital fund commitments representing a significant share alongside climate infrastructure and health investment. Over the past four years, EIB-backed operations have mobilised €73bn across Africa, according to the institution.
EIB Global committed more than €350m to new investment funds in 2025 alone, with other recipients including Amethis and Ardian. The Speedinvest Africa Fund represents one of the bank’s early-stage venture fund bets, consistent with its Boost Africa initiative, which also supports fund manager training through a programme hosted at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School.
Karl Nehammer, who signed the agreement on behalf of EIB Global, became the bank’s Vice-President in September 2025, succeeding Sweden’s Thomas Östros. An Austrian national, Nehammer served as Federal Chancellor of Austria from 2021 until leaving office in 2025. His portfolio at the EIB covers institutional relations with Austria and several Nordic and Baltic states, as well as EIB Global financing operations across the Eastern Neighbourhood.
Speedinvest’s Africa track record
Speedinvest has made over 16 investments in African startups to date, deploying more than $345m across the continent. The firm’s emerging markets practice, which covers the Middle East, Africa and broader growth markets, includes portfolio companies operating in Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and beyond. Its most recent African investment was a seed round in Anda, an agricultural marketplace with embedded financial services, announced in November 2025.
The firm’s most closely watched African holding remains Moove, which it backed alongside Left Lane Capital from early rounds. Moove’s annualised revenue grew from roughly $115m to $360m within a single year, driven by its core vehicle financing business and the January 2025 acquisition of Brazilian mobility firm Kovi. The startup achieved EBITDA break-even in 2024 and has expanded into autonomous vehicle fleet management through a partnership with Waymo, Alphabet’s self-driving subsidiary, operating electric robotaxi fleets in Phoenix and Miami.
FairMoney, another Speedinvest portfolio company, uses machine learning applied to smartphone data to build credit scores and distribute digital loans in Nigeria and India — a model designed for the roughly two billion people in emerging markets without formal credit histories. Khazna, operating in Egypt, provides employees and contractors with earned-wage-access and broader financial services, targeting a market where large portions of the formal workforce remain unbanked.
Thesis and context
Speedinvest’s decision to raise a dedicated Africa vehicle marks a structural shift from opportunistic deployment — where African deals competed for allocation within a global fund — to a ring-fenced capital pool with explicit regional mandate. The structure is consistent with how several European VC firms have formalised African exposure in recent years, though the pairing with EIB Global at first close is relatively uncommon and is likely to support fundraising from other development finance institutions with Africa mandates.
The fund’s focus on mobile-first and fintech-enabled verticals reflects Africa’s demographic and infrastructure profile: a young, predominantly mobile-internet population in which smartphone penetration has outpaced access to bank branches, and where digital-first services are often the only viable distribution channel for credit, insurance and payments. Founders in this environment are, in the firm’s framing, building for global scale from inception rather than adapting products developed for more mature markets.
Speedinvest’s Africa investment team includes Deepali Nangia, Rana Wehbe, Alvaro Navarro, Stefan Klestil and Varun Nair, who will lead deployment from the new fund.