Seedstars Africa Ventures has successfully secured a significant capital injection of $30 million from EIB Global, the specialized development finance branch of the European Investment Bank. This contribution represents the first major institutional commitment to Seedstars Africa Ventures’ debut pan-African venture capital fund.
This new financing follows an initial $8 million investment from the fund’s anchor investor, the French private equity firm LBO France. The fund has set a target for its final close at between $80 million and $100 million. The capital is designated to back Seed and Series A startups, with the flexibility to provide follow-on funding up to Series B, effectively aiming to bridge a substantial funding gap and provide sustained support to companies moving beyond initial accelerator phases.
Fund Structure and Strategic Positioning
To establish the fund, the venture capital firm’s partners, Maxime Bouan, Tamim El Zein, and Bruce Nsereko-Lule, collaborated with the Seedstars Group, a prominent emerging markets accelerator. This partnership allows the fund to leverage the Group’s extensive infrastructure and pre-existing market access across Africa.
The firm, which is headquartered in Paris and Nairobi, noted that the fund’s size is larger than the African average. This scale is intended to provide “capital well suited to the needs of entrepreneurs” across the continent, bridge critical funding gaps in regions beyond the “Big Four” markets—Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa—and offer practical operational and business support to founders.
Maxime Bouan explained the fund’s founding rationale: “When the team launched in 2020, there was very little capital available beyond acceleration, so there was a clear need to provide more capital at this stage. The team wanted to be pan-African from the onset and be able to provide hands-on support to portfolio companies through a targeted early-stage investment strategy.”
Bouan elaborated on the partnership’s value: “We approached Seedstars with a win-win opportunity to build a complementary post-acceleration fund that would leverage some of the resources and market access that they had already built. This would contribute to strengthening the continuum of capital by offering different types of funding suited to the entrepreneurs’ maturity, and catalyzing international and local follower investor capital.”
Investment Focus and Deployment
The Paris and Nairobi-based VC firm plans to make initial investments ranging from $250,000 to $2 million, with potential follow-on funding of up to $5 million, across a portfolio of up to 30 startups. This capital is augmented by granting entrepreneurs access to the Seedstars Group’s tools, networks, and market visibility. The VC firm emphasizes that this combination of capital and strong, hands-on support is greatly needed but remains relatively rare on the African continent.
Seedstars Africa Ventures stated that, while it is sector-agnostic, it prioritizes startups that address fundamental societal needs such as education, healthcare, and utilities, or those that enhance the efficiency of goods and services. While heavily focused on technology startups, the firm does not rule out “investing in innovative brick-and-mortar businesses that get an unfair advantage from digitalization.”
A core part of the fund’s strategy involves allocating up to 50% of its capital in Francophone Africa. This region is increasingly becoming a target for emerging VCs due to factors such as lower competitive pressure, a massive untapped market opportunity, and a higher quantity of better-priced, high-quality deals compared to the more mature Anglophone regions.
Institutional Backing and Portfolio Growth
The investment, provided by EIB Global, is supported by the EU’s ACP Trust Fund and the Boost Africa program. Edward Claessen, EIB’s head of regional hub for East Africa, commented on the strategic importance of backing African funds, highlighting their crucial role in growing and strengthening the continent’s startup ecosystem. He specifically noted that funds like Seedstars Africa Ventures are deeply invested in the continent and support founders who generate jobs and contribute meaningfully to economic expansion.
Using the initial funding secured from LBO France, the VC firm has already made four key investments: Kenya’s internet service provider Poa Internet; Nigeria’s grid management software-as-a-service (SaaS) for electricity distribution utilities, Beacon; the agricultural technology company Shamba Pride; and the payments company Bizao. The firm is now well-positioned to accelerate its investment pace following the new capital infusion. Separately, the wider Seedstars Group has also invested in 26 companies in Africa through its Seedstars International Ventures Funds I and II.
