The final number was bigger than the target. Ventures Platform‘s Fund II has closed at $84 million, according to the firm’s own announcement, exceeding an original target of $75 million, oversubscribed and registered as a closed-ended collective investment scheme under the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. The wire figure of $83 million, which circulated at the time of the announcement, has since been superseded by the firm’s official close disclosure.
Ventures Platform Fund II marks a structural expansion for the Lagos-headquartered firm, both in capital and in mandate. Where its $46 million Fund I, raised in 2022, concentrated on pre-seed and seed rounds primarily in Nigeria, the new vehicle will also lead and catalyse Series A investments, and will pursue opportunities across a broader geography: Egypt, Kenya, South Africa, and Francophone markets including Côte d’Ivoire, Morocco, and Senegal.
An LP Base Built From Development Finance
The fund’s institutional backbone reflects the development-finance community’s continued appetite for African technology exposure. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development committed up to $8 million, per its EBRD project page. Norway’s development finance institution, Norfund, put in $6 million, a commitment signed during a Lagos visit by Norwegian State Secretary Andreas Kravik. The International Finance Corporation proposed an equity investment of up to $6 million, per IFC project record IFC-50792.
Other investors in the fund include Standard Bank South Africa, British International Investment, Proparco through the EU-backed Choose Africa VC programme, Nigeria’s iDICE programme, MSMEDA, AfricaGrow, Alder Tree Investment, and Ghana’s Ashesi University Foundation. Alphatron joined at the final close. Seventy per cent of Fund I’s limited partners returned for Fund II.
The fundraising process stretched across roughly a year and a half. According to Proparco’s disclosure, the fund held a first close of $64 million in November 2025, with the final close adding approximately $20 million to reach the $84 million total. The first close had already exceeded the $75 million final-close target that the fund was originally pursuing.
Ventures Platform Fund II and the Cost of Serving African Markets
Kola Aina, the firm’s founding partner, has been clear about where he sees the opportunity. The fund will target early-stage founders in fintech, healthcare, and SaaS, as well as sectors ‘where technology can address essential needs and build large, enduring businesses.’ Check sizes will reach up to $3 million, with the capital expected to be deployed over three to four years.
Artificial intelligence sits inside that thesis, though not as a headline feature. ‘We’re particularly interested in where AI changes the economics of serving African markets,’ Aina told TechCrunch, pointing to its potential to reduce the cost of delivering services and help overcome labour shortages. ‘For us, AI is most interesting when it is not simply a feature, but an enabler of an entirely different cost structure, business model or market.’
Already, the firm has written cheques from Fund II to five companies based in Kenya, South Africa, and Egypt, signalling that the geographic expansion is under way rather than merely aspirational.
A Harder Room to Raise In
The LP environment that greeted Fund II was materially different from the one that backed Fund I. ‘LPs are asking harder questions about performance, portfolio construction, liquidity, manager discipline, and differentiation,’ Aina said. Capital is no longer assumed to be unlimited, particularly after the venture downturn of recent years left many LPs cautious about when portfolio value actually converts to realised returns.
‘There is a much clearer understanding that building valuable companies and generating venture returns require more than simply raising successive rounds of capital,’ he said.
African startups have raised around $930 million across more than 200 deals so far this year, compared with $1.16 billion across 447 deals last year. The market dynamic Aina describes matches the pattern: a barbell, with capital concentrating at established names and at emerging managers who can demonstrate a track record.
‘Three years ago, there was still a significant amount of curiosity around the African opportunity. Today, LPs expect proof,’ Aina said. ‘The conversation has moved from “Why Africa” to “Why you and how exactly are you going to generate returns.”‘
Fund I’s portfolio offers some of that proof. Ventures Platform’s prior fund backed Moniepoint and LemFi, which have since raised Series B and Series C rounds respectively. OmniRetail, another portfolio company, has topped the Financial Times list of Africa’s fastest-growing companies for three consecutive years; Norfund separately invested $77 million in growth capital in OmniRetail. The roster also includes Raenest, Remedial, SeamlessHR, and PiggyVest.
The test for Fund II is whether a larger pool and a wider map translates those earlier bets into the realised returns that LPs are now demanding as the price of admission to a third fund.
