Seedstars Africa Ventures I, a venture capital fund making early-stage investments in highly scalable start-ups in Africa, has achieved a first close of $42 million, with participation from the African Development Bank, EIB Global with the support of the European Union, under the ACP Trust Fund – EU Compartment and Boost Africa among other global investors.
The fund, with offices in Nairobi, Dakar and Paris, has further secured $50 million in commitments towards an $80 million fundraising target.
Seedstars Africa Ventures I is addressing gaps in early-stage financing across Africa through investments of up to $2 million in seed and series A rounds, with significant follow-on capacity up to $5 million, thereby bridging available pools of capital. By leading successive investment rounds, the fund will catalyse co-investment while offering operational support to start-ups.
The Fund was founded by Maxime Bouan, Tamim El Zein and Bruce Nsereko Lule and is a member of LBO France Group, which played a pivotal role in seeding this initiative as part of their multi asset class African strategy, alongside other initiatives.
Robert Daussun, and Stéphanie Casciola, Chairman and CEO respectively of LBO France said “We are delighted by Seedstars Africa Ventures’ latest milestone, and proud to have been the initial supporter of the team. The portfolio the team has built with our support is innovative and transformative, already providing significant impact and value to the continent. LBO France appreciates the opportunity SAV provides for us and our partners to be part of Africa’s growth story.”
“The African Development Bank views Seedstars Africa Ventures as a strategic opportunity to provide innovative support to Africa’s venture capital industry. It serves as a conduit to improve access to finance for youth and women while also enhancing the availability of risk capital in Francophone Africa. This is an area that has traditionally faced limited access to risk capital,” said Ahmed Attout, African Development Bank Group Director for Financial Sector Development.
“We welcome the investment of the African Development Bank, our Boost Africa partners, in the Seedstars Africa Ventures fund,” said EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle. “Accelerating digitalisation is a priority for the EIB, and we are committed to supporting African businesses as they drive innovation and prosperity on the continent.”
The fund has already deployed over $10 million to five pioneering African startups in the climate, food systems, energy access, internet connectivity, financial inclusion, and payments infrastructure sectors. These businesses serve over 60 million people, including by connecting 60,000 households to the internet, supporting 50,000 farmers, and empowering 30,000 individuals with financial inclusion services across eight African countries. The portfolio is also fully 2X compliant, empowering women in startups and ecosystems.
The five companies are:
- Beacon Power Services (Nigeria): one of Africa’s fastest-growing cleantech companies, which provides electricity access to millions of Africans
- Poa! Internet (Kenya): which offers broadband internet for just $10 per month to over 60,000 households
- Xeno (Uganda) : provides disruptive financial products offering sustainable and attractive savings alternatives for Africans
- Bizao (Cote d’Ivoire, Senegal,: France): which addresses demand for high-performing payment aggregation platforms from major corporates and fintechs in Francophone Africa
- Shamba Pride (Kenya): an operator of nearly 300 franchised shops that deliver products, insights, and training to farmers to address significant bottlenecks in the agricultural value chain.
Beacon Power Services (Lagos, Nigeria) – 2022
Beacon Power Services (BPS) provides a SaaS solution to electricity distribution companies in Africa, enabling end-to-end management of the grid by aggregating data from the network’s meters: from electricity loss monitoring, to consumer data management, payments and B2B facility management.
Founded by Bim Adisa, BPS’ solutions are conceived with African national utilities to face the significant opportunities left in the grid electricity sector. Whereas most capital has been concentrated on off-grid and on-grid power production, Africa loses up to 50% of its energy in distribution losses due to legacy systems which lead to unfair practices and under-invested infrastructure. These losses come at significant costs to populations which suffer repeated power outages. During these outages, diesel generators are switched on and create detrimental impact to the planet.
Seedstars Africa Ventures led an initial investment round of 2.7mn in 2022 and another in 2023 on the back of heavy growth. The company has since reached the following KPIs:
- Grown from 2 to 6 national distribution companies with more coming.
- Nearly 60 million people benefit from 25% improved energy coverage
- 1.7 million tons of CO2 reduced in 2023 by unused diesel generators
- Over 1,000 formalized jobs created across two countries.
Closed a multi-million dollar Series A, with participation of VCs including Seedstars Africa Ventures and Partech, and large bilateral development banks including FinnFund and Proparco.
Shamba Pride (Kenya) – 2021
Shamba Pride is a Kenyan incorporated company which provides franchised agro retail shops one-stop access to supply of quality agricultural inputs, credit, online and offline management software, delivery of supplies, marketing tools and training. Founded by Samuel Munguti and Nancy Mutuku in 2016, the company is revolutionizing smallholder farmer access to agricultural intrants and training by strengthening agrodealer capacity to provide improved services.
By improving existing market practices, Shamba Pride gains from easy onboarding and strong retention. Each shop gains significant business by joining the franchise and creates employment opportunities for rural populations, while farmers earn up to 2.5x in revenues due to improved yields due to cheaper and higher quality input quality.
Seedstars Africa Ventures led a $1.1mn investment round in Shamba Pride at the end of 2021. Since, the market has known strong disruptions with increased prices of inputs in 2022 and state fertilizer subsidies in 2023 which have weakened some players in the agritech market. Through its grounded and diversified strategy, the company has nonetheless grown consistently since :
- The company has grown from 20 shops to 290+ franchised shops (increasing by 26% in 2024) with over 3,600 agrodealers registered to join.
- The company’s quarterly revenues have grown by 4x
- The company has grown product offering to include organic and climate smart products.
- Over 694 total formalized jobs supported (increasing by 30% over 2024) and growing…
- During 2024, the company developed corporate partnerships with international manufacturers of farm inputs to provide farmers quality and affordable inputs to optimize their yields.
- The company has also partnered with local backs to provide Buy Now Pay Later products to Agrovets to enable them to scale their businesses.
Poa! Internet (Kenya) – 2020
Poa Internet provides affordable broadband to lower income communities African helping them cross the digital divide. Less than 20% of sub-Saharan African’s use the Internet due to high prices and lack of availability. Those Africans who are online use significantly less data than consumers in developed markets.
Poa solves this problem by providing and unlimited data service for a fixed price of KES 1,500 (approx. US$9.50) per month; this is half the price of other residential Internet services and 95% cheaper than 4G and 5G alternatives.
Poa is scaling rapidly, within a year growing from serving 25 neighbourhoods to over 35. It operates in communities across Nairobi, Mombasa and Nakuru and has plans to expand nationally and into other African countries.
Internet access is a fundamental enabler for social inclusion, trade, and education. Poa accelerates this social impact by providing free Internet to schools and other community organisations.
Seedstars Africa Ventures has been supporting Poa Internet since 2020 and participated in the latest US$28mn round announced in January 2022. Poa has connected over 50,000 households and has been doubling in size each year since 2021.
XENO (Uganda, Kenya) – 2024
XENO is a digital retail fund management company that assists individuals, groups, and businesses to invest their savings to meet their financial goals. Using its proprietary technology, XENO’s platform assess the financial situation and risk appetite of a client, and then provides them with a suitable saving plan to achieve their financial goals through investments in XENO’s various unit trusts which can be deployed and monitored on the platform instantly. XENO offers its clients seamless access through the web, mobile app, and USSD, ensuring convenience for all users. Xeno is a licensed fund manager.
Xeno has proven to be a trusted financial educator and wealth manager, and has grown to serve over 30,000 individuals and businesses today in Uganda. Growingly, businesses are using Xeno to provide saving schemes to their employees, as a fund manager with a platform that enables employees to manage such benefits. Off the back of its success and leveraging its tech-lite approach, the business launched operations in Kenya in 2024. Since inception, Xeno’s customer deposits have increased, and the manager now holds over US$ 19 million in deposits on the platform. In an effort to build saving behaviours further, Xeno developed and launched the ability for customers to set automated recurring deposits to the fund, which has seen its customer savings rate increase.
Seedstars Africa Ventures has been the company’s sole provider of equity over 2024 and guided its growth over the year.
Bizao (Ivory Coast, Senegal, France) – 2022
Bizao is a fintech pioneering the construction and operation of a financial services platform in francophone Africa, offering businesses a complete solution for accepting various payment methods including mobile money and cards, but also airtime with direct carrier billing.
Bizao has established more than 30 strategic partnerships with telecoms operators, banks and mobile money operators in Africa, enabling them to offer its financial services in over 10 different countries. It already reaches 200 million end customers and supports over 200 businesses in their transition to online and in-store digital payments.
Bizao’s robust platform guarantees complete traceability of transactions, meeting the strict standards imposed by banks and regulators in the fight against terrorism and money laundering.
Seedstars Africa Ventures participated in the €8mn series A announced in July 2022.
