Over $280m in corporate venture capital has flown into African tech startups in 2025, but the money tells a different story than Silicon Valley-style CVC. Banks are defending their turf, Japanese corporates are building healthcare infrastructure, and energy companies are hedging against transition risk. The question is whether this capital serves African innovation — or just corporate strategy.
The corporate money map
Analysis of investment data by Launch Base Africa reveals booming corporate venture activity across African startups. Financial services companies lead activity, with Visa making investments in excess of $14m. Energy corporates deployed over $74m across clean energy deals. Japanese and other Asia-Pacific entities show significant presence, particularly in healthcare and mobility sectors.
The largest single corporate investment came from Commercial International Bank in Egypt, which provided a $71.4m securitised bond to fintech MNT-Halan. Standard Bank followed with $22.4m for South African earned wage access platform Paymenow. These aren’t typical venture checks — they’re strategic infrastructure plays by banks seeing digital threats to their business models.
Geography reveals strategy
Kenya emerges as a major destination for corporate venture capital, attracting significant investment including multiple Japanese-backed deals. The concentration reflects Japanese corporate interest in East Africa’s mobile money infrastructure and regulatory environment rather than pure market size considerations.
Several of Kenya’s corporate deals involved Japanese investors. Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and Asian partners backed Peach Cars with $11m. AAIC Investment, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Ohara Pharmaceutical made separate healthcare infrastructure investments. The pattern suggests coordinated strategic positioning by Japanese corporates viewing Kenya as an East African entry point.
Nigeria and South Africa also captured substantial corporate investment, concentrated in fintech, logistics, and energy sectors. Egypt secured notable investments, including MediaTek’s $10m bet on semiconductor company InfiniLink — one of the few corporate venture investments in African hardware manufacturing.
The data shows corporate venture following different logic than traditional VC. While financial investors chase the largest addressable markets, corporates invest where they have existing operations, regulatory relationships, or specific strategic assets to access.
Banks on defence
So far, financial institutions have deployed the largest single cheques and showed the clearest defensive posture. Visa made at least four fintech investments through its Africa Fintech Accelerator, backing payment infrastructure in Tunisia, Morocco, Nigeria, and Ghana. The accelerator structure provides early access before startups scale and potentially compete.
Mastercard took a different approach, making a single strategic investment in Smile ID, a Nigerian identity verification company. While Visa backs payment processors, Mastercard invested in the KYC layer enabling digital finance — a more foundational bet.
Standard Chartered’s SC Ventures deployed $10m into Furaha, a pan-African banking infrastructure platform. The investment is notable because Furaha’s co-founder previously worked at Standard Chartered. Analysts observe that corporate venture often resembles an acquihire with equity, with companies buying teams and technology rather than just financial returns.
The largest bank investment came from Egypt’s Commercial International Bank, which structured a $71.4m securitised bond for MNT-Halan rather than taking equity. Three Kenyan banks — KCB, Co-operative Bank, and Absa — participated in a $156m securitisation for solar company Sun King. These debt structures suggest banks view mature fintechs as strategic partners for securitised lending rather than portfolio companies.
From the data, it appears that banks are trying to determine whether fintechs are competitors or distribution channels. Those that are investing seem to have, at least for now, chosen their partners.
Energy transition hedge
Five energy corporates invested $74m in clean energy startups, split between traditional oil companies and renewable specialists. TotalEnergies provided a $7m debt facility to Rwanda’s Ampersand for electric motorcycle infrastructure. Chevron Technology Ventures and Japan’s Idemitsu co-invested $15m in South Africa’s maxwell+spark for green energy solutions.
Shell Foundation, Shell’s impact investment arm, backed two deals: Ghana’s Kofa ($8.1m) and Nigeria’s Koolboks ($11m), both targeting energy access for underserved populations. The foundation operates separately from Shell’s main corporate venture unit, with explicit development objectives rather than strategic returns.
Octopus Energy, a UK renewable specialist, deployed $13.3m in MOPO, an African clean energy platform. Unlike oil majors hedging transition risk, Octopus is using corporate venture for geographic expansion into markets with less regulatory friction than Europe.
The energy corporate investments concentrate on off-grid solutions, electric mobility, and distributed solar — technologies facing regulatory barriers in developed markets but deployable across Africa with minimal permitting.
Japanese corporate advance
Japanese entities have been notably active in African startup investments, with activity spanning healthcare, mobility, and fintech sectors, concentrated in Kenya and Nigeria.
AAIC Investment and Ohara Pharmaceutical both invested in Kenya’s MyDawa, a digital pharmacy platform. The pattern suggests Japanese pharma companies using corporate venture to understand African distribution challenges before committing to commercial expansion.
Suzuki Global Ventures led an $11m investment in Peach Cars, a Kenyan used car platform, alongside JBIC, Gogin Capital, and University of Tokyo Edge Capital. Four Japanese entities backing a single mobility startup indicates coordinated strategic interest in East Africa’s automotive market.
The Japanese approach differs from US tech corporate venture, which often operates as standalone units with financial return mandates. Japanese corporate venture appears more integrated with parent company strategy, often involving government-backed entities like JBIC to de-risk commercial players.
The infrastructure play
Analysis of corporate deals shows strong strategic alignment between corporate core business and startup technology — notably higher than typical US corporate venture portfolios where innovation scouting often leads to investments outside primary business areas.
Flour Mills of Nigeria was part of the recent $20m round for OmniRetail, a B2B commerce platform digitising distribution for fast-moving consumer goods. The investment isn’t financial speculation — it’s Flour Mills buying technology to optimise its route-to-market.
South African agricultural chemicals company AECI invested $6.7m in Khula, an agritech platform, alongside PepsiCo’s Kgodiso Fund. Both corporates are investing in farm-level data and supply chain visibility directly supporting their operations.
Bolt, the Estonian ride-hailing company, backed MyNextCar’s $10m round for fleet leasing in South Africa. The strategic logic is straightforward: better vehicle financing means more drivers on Bolt’s platform.
The pattern contrasts with European and US corporate venture, where separate units often invest in tangential sectors for strategic optionality. African corporate venture shows tighter alignment between investment thesis and operational needs.
Structural creativity
Corporate investors are deploying capital through structures beyond traditional equity rounds, with several deals using debt facilities, securitisations, and combinations of strategic partnerships with equity investments.
Three Kenyan banks participated in Sun King’s $156m securitisation, providing debt against solar equipment payment receivables rather than taking equity. Egypt’s CIB structured its MNT-Halan investment as a securitised bond. These approaches provide growth capital while avoiding governance complications and dilution.
Mirova, a French asset manager, provided debt facilities to Arc Ride ($10m) and KOKO Networks ($10m) rather than equity investments. The structures work for companies with predictable cash flows from subscription or pay-as-you-go models.
Mastercard’s investment in Smile ID combined a minority equity stake with a strategic partnership, giving Mastercard access to identity verification technology while providing Smile ID with distribution through Mastercard’s network.
“Corporates in Africa are more creative with structure because equity exits are uncertain,” explains Charles Rapulu Udoh, a Lagos-based venture lawyer. “Debt and revenue shares provide returns even if acquisition or IPO markets don’t develop.”
The structural variety suggests African corporate venture has matured beyond pure equity plays into more sophisticated capital deployment matching specific use cases and risk profiles.
Stage preferences differ
Corporate investors tend to enter at later stages than traditional VCs, with substantial activity at Series A and beyond compared to venture capital’s typical concentration at seed and pre-seed stages.
Corporate venture activity at pre-seed stages primarily comes through accelerator programmes run by Visa, Google for Startups, and Morgan Stanley. These programmes provide option value — small stakes allowing corporates to observe startups before committing larger capital at later stages.
From the data, we observe that corporates seem to want proven business models; they don’t appear to have the risk tolerance for pre-product companies, even when the strategic fit is obvious.
The later-stage focus means corporates compete with growth equity funds and development finance institutions rather than seed investors. Standard Bank’s $22.4m into Paymenow and Flour Mills’ $20m into OmniRetail represent substantial checks in the African startup funding landscape.
Morgan Stanley’s accelerator provides $250,000 equity stakes in Kenya’s BuuPass and Nigeria’s Zuri Health — exploratory investments testing African exposure rather than strategic positioning. This approach mirrors US bank accelerators using small checks for market learning.
The crypto corporate angle
Tether, the stablecoin issuer, made two investments: leading a $10m seed round for Mansa and backing Kotani Pay’s web3 payment infrastructure. The investments position Tether’s USDT stablecoin as payment rails in markets experiencing currency volatility.
“The World Bank reports that remittance costs in Sub-Saharan Africa remain high — around 7.9%. With stablecoins, we can drive down these costs and improve financial inclusion,’’ Gillian Darko, Director of Strategy at Yellow Card, told Launch Base Africa.
The crypto corporate approach differs from traditional financial institutions. While banks invest in fintechs as potential partners or acquirers, Tether is funding infrastructure that drives usage of its core product. The strategy resembles Visa’s payment infrastructure investments more than bank defensive positioning.
No other major crypto companies appear in our data. Coinbase Ventures invested in Continental Stablecoin Inc., but the pattern suggests limited crypto corporate appetite for African startup exposure beyond specific stablecoin use cases.
Notable absences
Several corporate categories expected to be active are largely missing from African corporate venture.
MTN and Airtel, African telecom giants with extensive mobile money operations, made no direct investments according to our data. This absence is surprising given MTN’s historical fintech activity through MoMo and both operators’ stakes in digital services. The data suggests African telcos may be scaling back corporate venture or focusing on internal development.
Big Tech is also mostly absent. Google made several small investments through Google for Startups (also did Meta through micro grants), but other Big Tech companies like Microsoft or Amazon others don’t appear. This contrasts with US and European startup ecosystems where tech giants are active corporate investors.
Chinese companies are nearly invisible. Despite China’s significant African infrastructure investments and trade relationships, no Chinese e-commerce, fintech, or manufacturing corporates appear in the 2025 data. Yango Ventures (Yandex’s international unit, often classified with Chinese tech despite Russian origins) made two small investments, but Alibaba, Tencent, JD.com, and others are absent.
Automotive manufacturers, aside from Suzuki, haven’t invested despite Africa’s growing vehicle markets. Logistics companies like DHL and Maersk are missing despite obvious supply chain digitisation opportunities. However, SAS Shipping Agencies Services, part of the Italian MSC Group, was part of Gozem’s $30m round in February.
“The corporates investing in Africa are the ones already operating here or testing new markets,” observes a Lagos-based investor confided in Launch Base Africa. “Pure financial corporates and those without African operations are staying away.”
What the numbers show
Investment scale:
- Multiple corporate investors active across African markets
- Substantial capital deployed in 2025
- Largest deals in fintech and energy sectors
Corporate categories:
- Financial services corporations most active
- Energy companies significant presence
- Asia-Pacific corporates notably present
- Technology companies selective participation
Geographic patterns:
- Kenya: Major destination for Japanese corporate capital
- Nigeria: Strong fintech and logistics investment
- South Africa: Financial services and energy focus
- Egypt: Notable investments including semiconductor sector
Sector concentration:
- Fintech dominates corporate investment activity
- Clean energy/climate tech substantial presence
- Healthcare infrastructure notable focus
- Mobility sector active participation
Investment stages:
- Later-stage preference (Series A onwards)
- Limited pre-seed activity outside accelerators
- Debt and hybrid structures used alongside equity
- Securitisations in mature fintech and energy deals
Some of the Largest investments:
- CIB Egypt → MNT-Halan: $71.4m (securitised bond)
- Standard Bank → Paymenow: $22.4m (R400m)
- Flour Mills → OmniRetail: $20m
- Shell Foundation → Clean energy deals: $19.1m combined
- Chevron + Idemitsu → maxwell+spark: $15m Series B
- Octopus Energy → MOPO: $13.3m
- Chari (Orange Ventures): $12m Series A
- Peach Cars (Suzuki/JBIC consortium): $11m
- Koolboks (Shell Foundation + others): $11m
Most active corporates:
- Visa: Participated in fintech deals totaling $14m+
- Orange Ventures: Participated deals totaling $16.5m+
- Boehringer Ingelheim: Participated in healthcare investments
- Google: Made investments including lead positions
What it means
Corporate venture capital in African startups has evolved into strategic infrastructure investment rather than innovation exploration. Substantial capital deployed in 2025 follows clear patterns: banks defending digital threats, energy companies hedging transition risk, and Japanese corporates building long-term market positions.
The activity differs from US and European corporate venture in several ways. African corporate investors show tighter strategic alignment with core business operations, later-stage investment focus, and greater use of alternative structures including debt and securitisations.
Whether this benefits African innovation remains unclear. Corporate capital provides scale-up funding and distribution access, but geographic and sector concentration create gaps. Startups outside established markets and sectors see limited corporate interest.
For African founders, corporate venture represents a double-edged tool. Strategic capital can accelerate growth and provide market access traditional VCs can’t match. But governance complications, slower processes, and potential conflicts require careful consideration.
The question for the coming year is whether corporate venture expands beyond current boundaries or calcifies into a parallel funding track serving established markets and proven sectors. Early indicators suggest the latter — which may be rational for corporate investors but limiting for the broader African startup ecosystem.
Further reading:
- A list of Over 80 prolific venture capital firms investing in African startups [HERE]
- A list of over 150 latest investors (and contact details) in African startups investing in 2025 [HERE]
- A list of over 400 angel investors in African startups [HERE]
- Detailed Analysis and Pattern Mapping: French Investors in African Startups (2025) [HERE]
- Corporate Venture Capital in African Startups: 2025 Data Analysis [HERE]