For the first time, the Nigerian government is directly trying its hand at startup investing, and Ventures Platform is the first to benefit.
Ventures Platform, one of Africa’s most active seed-stage funds, has announced a $64 million first close for its second fund, VP Pan-African Fund II, with a target of a final close of $75 million. The fund will deepen seed-stage investing, catalyse Series A rounds, and expand the firm’s pan-African footprint, powering what it calls Africa’s next tech wave.
While about 70% of the Limited Partners (LPs) from the firm’s first institutional fund returned for this round, it is the first-of-its-kind participation from Nigeria’s Investment in Digital and Creative Enterprises (iDICE) program that catches the eye.
Launched in 2023 with $617.7 million in funding, iDICE is a federal government initiative designed to promote investment in Nigeria’s digital and creative sectors. It is backed by the Federal Government of Nigeria (through the Bank of Industry), African Development Bank (AfDB), Agence Française de Développement (AFD), and the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB). The programme’s investment in Ventures Platform marks its first deployment into a private venture fund.
“We are delighted to have iDICE as an LP,” said Kola Aina, Founding Partner at Ventures Platform. “They inspire and give confidence to foreign LPs. They also have context into the markets, and so they can be very helpful to the GP, to the fund manager, and the portfolio companies in the local markets.”
Aina added that having a quasi-government LP could also help unlock regulatory flexibility. “We hope to be able to lean on them for sort of regulatory issues, issues that are multi-agency and multi-government agency,” he said.
Other investors in the round include International Finance Corporation (IFC), Standard Bank (South Africa), British International Investment (BII), Proparco through its EU-backed Choose Africa VC program, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Development Agency (MSMEDA), and AfricaGrow.
Leading family offices such as Alder Tree Investment, alongside notable global investors like Michael Seibel, also participated.
According to Olasupo Olusi, CEO of the Bank of Industry, the investment deepens the federal government’s goal of scaling the country’s technology and creative sectors by catalysing high-growth, tech-enabled enterprises.
“Bank of Industry is proud to be associated with Ventures Platform – the programme’s technology fund manager on this milestone achievement,” Olusi said.
Nigeria’s public funding rarely takes risks, even though the Startup Act provides for a government-backed seed fund of up to ₦10 billion ($6.95 million). This participation in Ventures Platform signals a shift in thinking and possibly a new model for public-private collaboration.
The federal government is also borrowing a leaf from one of its sub-nationals, Lagos, which has been investing in local startups and recently announced plans to dedicate part of its annual capital spending to innovation in a proposed bill.
Globally, government-backed capital has played a catalytic role in startup ecosystems. Silicon Valley thrived on the US government’s benevolence in its early days. In Chile, the CORFO program has long seeded the country’s startup ecosystem. Nigeria’s move could mark the beginning of a similar model.
The VP Pan-African Fund II said, in addition to its foundational pre-seed and seed rounds, it will now lead and facilitate Series A investments, while strengthening its activities in Francophone Africa and accelerating pan-African expansion into North Africa, all while intensifying its focus on core operations in Nigeria and across broader Africa.
The fund will continue investing across fintech, healthtech, agritech, edtech, and AI. It closed its 1st institutional fund in December 2022 at $46 million. Since its inception in 2016, Ventures Platform has backed over 90 startups, including Moniepoint, LemFi, Raenest, Remedial Health, and SeamlessHR, many of which have gone on to raise later-stage rounds. The firm has also returned four of its six investment cohorts.
