Nigeria’s VC Firm VKAV Closes $60 Million Pan-African Fund

Offering a significant financial opportunity, Nigeria’s Venture Capital (VC) landscape is growing and expected to cross $700 million mark by end of 2024. More than 100 VC firms are active in the country helping entrepreneurs in identifying investors.

The latest company is Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV) in Nigeria, which has closed its first fund at $60 million. The key institutional investors in the fund include SBI Holdings, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Japan International Corporation Agency, and Japan ICT Fund.

New investors who joined the final close include SCM Capital, formerly known as Sterling Capital Markets Limited, from Nigeria and a few additional institutional investors from Japan, including Taiyo Holdings and C2C Global Education Japan.

VKAV is the first fund by Verod-Kepple Africa Partners, a joint venture between Verod Capital Management, a West African private equity firm investing in mid-sized enterprises across sectors, and Kepple Africa Ventures. 

With a focus on growth stage companies, VKAV is tackling the growing gap of funding availability, particularly from Nigeria-based investors, for companies moving to Series A and B stages in the African countries.

The VKAV fund will focus on 3 key themes: companies building digital infrastructure across different sectors; inefficiency solvers who are solving for friction primarily between businesses or between businesses and consumers; and market creators who are creating economic opportunities for people, based on the changing dynamics of the overall African economy and demographics.

Chief Capital, Strategy & Impact Officer at Moove Tingting Peng said that they share VKAV’s mission to foster prosperity and reduce economic inequality across the continent, and they were pleased to see more impactful investment into the African tech ecosystem.

“Having just closed our Series B funding round, we are grateful for VKAV’s continued support in our journey and look forward to working together with the team to supercharge our growth,” Peng added.

Support to Dozen Companies

The fund has so far backed 12 companies including Moove Africa, KOKO Networks, Ceviant, Chari, Shuttlers, Nawy, Julaya, NowPay, Chefaa, Cloudline, Zone, and mTek-Services.

KOKO Networks co-founder and CEO Greg Murray said that VKAV has provided real and tangible value-add to KOKO with their Japanese market entry process, and in the African government relations strategy. They are an unusual firm, combining deep insight into African operating realities with an incredible network in Japan,” Murray added.

The VKAV team are hands-on investors providing support from fundraising to partnerships, governance, ESG implementation, talent and legal to their portfolio companies.

Their partnership with Verod is a critical part of this support as they are above to focus on bringing operational best practice and preparation for further fundraising and exit from the beginning. This support is more critical than ever as companies work to navigate the complex macroeconomic environment in Africa and look to expand to other markets globally. 

Sharing his experience working with VKAV, Mostafa El-Beltagy, co-founder and CEO of Nawy, one of VKAV portfolio companies, said: “VKAV has been an amazing partner beyond the investment, the team is proactively and consistently seeking ways in which to help make the business more successful. We are very proud to have such a fund as a partner in our journey.”