In a decisive move to deepen its footprint across Africa’s underserved Francophone markets, Nigerian venture capital firm Ventures Platform has appointed Hady Barry as Senior Investment Associate. Based in Côte d’Ivoire, Barry will lead the firm’s expansion efforts in French-speaking (Francophone) West and Central Africa — regions that have long remained undercapitalized despite showing significant entrepreneurial promise.
The announcement is part of a broader strategy by Ventures Platform to bridge Africa’s intra-continental funding disparities, and to back early-stage startups building scalable, market-creating solutions.
“Capital must follow talent. And they are everywhere in Africa,” said Barry during a recent gathering in Dakar, where over 50 stakeholders — from investors to government officials — convened to examine the regulatory and funding barriers hampering the growth of startups in Francophone markets.
An Operator-Turned-Investor with Deep Regional Experience
Barry’s appointment signals Ventures Platform’s intent to move beyond superficial regional engagement. With more than a decade of experience in fintech, health innovation, and regional expansion, she is no stranger to scaling impact-oriented businesses across Africa. She previously led regional growth for remittance firm Taptap Send, and helped Zipline broker national healthcare delivery partnerships using drone technology — experiences that have given her rare insight into both operational execution and policy navigation.
At Ventures Platform, Barry is tasked with sourcing and supporting transformative startups from Francophone Africa — particularly those leveraging technology to solve access, efficiency, and affordability challenges across sectors like logistics, financial services, health, agriculture, and education.
In addition to Barry’s hiring, Ventures Platform also announced the promotion of two senior team members — Damilola Teidi and Dolapo Morgan — to the role of Principal. Teidi leads the firm’s Platform & Networks team, playing a crucial role in scaling founder support and ecosystem engagement. Morgan, a key member of the investment team, has helped advance the firm’s diligence and portfolio strategy across multiple markets.
These leadership moves are part of what the firm describes as a “dual engine” strategy: grow its internal capacity while broadening its geographic mandate.
Why Francophone Africa — and Why Now?
The firm’s expansion comes amid a wider reckoning in the African venture capital ecosystem, which has historically favored Anglophone countries like Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa. Yet Francophone countries — particularly Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, and Cameroon — are emerging as promising hubs with rising startup activity, improved regulatory structures, and growing local talent pools.
Ventures Platform’s activities in Francophone Africa already include investments in Senegalese freight startup Chargel, which raised $2.5 million in 2023 to streamline trucking logistics across West Africa. The fund is also part of a pan-African shift in capital deployment, fueled in part by backing from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) and other institutional investors.
In February, the IFC committed $6 million to Ventures Platform Fund II (VP II), joining development finance institutions such as British International Investment (BII), Proparco, and AfricaGrow. The fund, now at $46 million, aims to invest between $300,000 and $2 million in early-stage startups, particularly those creating new markets by lowering costs or enabling access to previously unavailable services.
At the high-level event in Dakar earlier this year, Barry joined entrepreneurs, investors, and policymakers in unpacking the region’s most pressing challenges: fragmented regulations, cross-border trade frictions, and limited access to capital. Yet the tone was largely optimistic.
“Regulation is often seen as a barrier,” Barry said, “but it can also be a lever for innovation. Startups here are no longer just projects — they’re companies, building real value.”
One example is Chargel, founded in 2021 by brothers Moustapha and Alioune Ndoye. The platform, backed by Ventures Platform in 2023, now facilitates real-time connections between carriers and shippers, and offers services like GPS tracking, fuel discounts, and technical support. Chargel plans to expand into Mali, Guinea, and Mauritania — testament to how regulatory clarity, infrastructure, and funding can catalyze cross-border growth.
A Portfolio Rooted in Market-Creation
Ventures Platform has backed over 90 companies since its launch in 2016. Its current portfolio includes standout names like PiggyVest, Paystack (acquired by Stripe), Moniepoint, and SeamlessHR. Its investment thesis prioritizes startups that expand access through affordability and digital infrastructure, particularly in fintech, edtech, healthtech, agritech, and SaaS.
Unlike some regional peers, Ventures Platform does not impose a minimum investment size but aims to hold at least 10% equity in the startups it backs. This long-term, active-partner model includes support with recruitment, regulatory navigation, fundraising, and expansion strategy.
From its first fund, Ventures Platform has already deployed $19.6 million. Pre-seed and seed-stage companies make up over 90% of this investment, with fintech alone attracting $6.8 million, followed by SaaS ($2.8M), health tech ($2.4M), and B2B tech ($2M). As capital tightens globally, the fund is sharpening its focus on startups with strong unit economics and regional expansion potential.
As more development finance institutions redirect funding towards Africa’s emerging venture capital landscape, local funds like Ventures Platform are poised to play a more central role. The firm’s expansion into Francophone Africa is more than a strategic maneuver — it’s a recognition of the continent’s linguistic and regulatory diversity, and a bet on its distributed innovation potential.
“From Lagos to Dakar, Cairo to Kigali, there’s an enormous amount of talent solving local problems,” said Kola Aina, founding partner of Ventures Platform. “The job of venture capital is to meet that talent where it is — and move with it.”
In a continent where capital has often followed colonial-era lines of language and influence, Ventures Platform’s renewed strategy offers a counter-narrative: one where African startups are funded not based on geography or language — but on potential.