Madica, a structured pre-seed investment programme for African startups, has secured $6mn in additional capital from Flourish Ventures to extend its investment pilot by three years, the company announced on Tuesday.
Building on lessons learned and early signs of traction across its portfolio, Madica will back 25 to 30 additional companies and deepen its company-building support for founders underserved by established venture capital networks. The extended pilot aims to build further evidence for Madica’s founding conviction: that these founders can build world-class businesses capable of generating venture returns when equipped with the right capital and support.
Launched in 2022, Madica set out to demonstrate that exceptional founders in Africa’s overlooked markets, sectors and networks can build globally competitive businesses. The sector-agnostic programme has since backed 18 startups across 10 countries and 12 sectors, combining patient pre-seed capital with structured, hands-on company-building support.
These companies have attracted, on average, twice Madica’s investment in additional funding, an early signal of investor confidence as they work towards the commercial outcomes needed to challenge prevailing assumptions about where venture-scale businesses can emerge in Africa.
The extended pilot will allow Madica to track how companies across a broader portfolio translate early traction into sustained business growth, examining the role of its investment and support model in that progress and assessing the potential to generate venture returns through exits.
“This continues the pilot’s original purpose: to build tangible evidence that can challenge assumptions about which founders and markets offer venture-scale opportunities in Africa,” the company said in a statement. The findings will help refine Madica’s approach and provide practical lessons that other investors can adapt and apply.
Madica’s portfolio spans more than a dozen sectors, including climate-tech, semiconductors, artificial intelligence, human resources, biotechnology and mobility, reflecting the breadth of innovation emerging across the continent.
The diversity is also evident in the volume and reach of applications, with submissions spanning 28 sectors and 78 countries. Notably, 40 per cent of applications came from outside Africa’s four largest venture capital markets — Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt — signalling both the depth of untapped entrepreneurial potential across the continent and the need for more inclusive funding pathways.
Every company in Madica’s portfolio is majority African-owned. More than 50 per cent have at least one female co-founder, and 39 per cent are led by female chief executives, demonstrating what the firm describes as a deliberate approach to identifying and backing talent that established investment networks have often overlooked.
“Madica was launched as an experiment to test whether pairing capital with hands-on company-building support could help overlooked founders building world-class businesses generate venture outcomes, and in many ways, our work sits at the intersection of the very many questions that underpin the state of early-stage venture investing in Africa,” said Emmanuel Adegboye, Head of Madica.
“From the outset, we knew that gathering meaningful evidence would require years of investment, support and learning. Three years have given us valuable lessons and encouraging early signals, but building enduring companies and assessing venture outcomes takes longer,” he added.
“Flourish Ventures’ continued commitment gives us the capital to build on those lessons and test our conviction across a broader portfolio while deepening our company-building support. We want the resulting evidence to give other investors a model they can apply, shaping where funding goes and how founders are backed across Africa, well beyond Madica.”
Efayomi Carr, Investment Partner at Flourish Ventures and Co-founder of Madica, said: “We retain our conviction that with the right capital and support, exceptional talent across Africa can build world-class businesses. Madica’s first three years have strengthened that belief, and we are excited to continue backing the team as they help more entrepreneurs achieve that mission.”
Madica is an Africa-focused pre-seed investment programme affiliated with Flourish Ventures. It aims to empower underrepresented and underfunded mission-driven founders on the continent by providing funding and democratising access to company-building support.
Flourish Ventures, which manages $850mn in assets, is a global early-stage venture firm that backs entrepreneurs transforming financial systems. Its portfolio spans more than 100 companies across the US and emerging markets, including unicorns such as Alloy, Flutterwave, Kin, Neon and Unit.
Madica continues to seek founders building early-stage startups across Africa. Eligible startups must have a minimum viable product with proven traction from paying customers, founders engaged full-time, little or no institutional funding, and be headquartered in Africa.