Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures raises $43m for pan-African venture fund – Disrupt Africa

Verode-Keppel Africa Ventures (VKAV) has raised US$43 million for its pan-African venture fund, which invests in scalable, tech-enabled, post-revenue startups solving tough challenges on the continent.

Formed in 2021 as a joint venture between Keppel Africa Ventures (KAV), a Japanese venture capital firm, and Verode Holdings (Verode), an African growth capital private equity firm, vkav The partner is led by Satoshi Shinada, Ryosuke Yamawaki and Ori Okoloh.

The VKAV Fund is its first investment vehicle, and will leverage the two companies’ accumulated knowledge and skills to invest in startups across Africa, with a focus on early-stage companies that are working to solve social challenges in the region. are doing.

The first closing of US$43 million comes from backers including SBI Holdings, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank (SMTB) and individual investors such as Osamu Kaneda. VKAV’s current investments include Move Africa, Coco Networks, Savient, Chari, Shuttler and Julaya.

“JICA is supporting seed-stage start-ups in Africa through Project Ninja and Home Grown Solutions (HGS) through the African Union Development Agency. However, this investment will expand JICA’s support to include financial support for early-stage startups, and is expected to increase cooperation between Japanese companies and startups in Africa. JICA will continue to support startup companies and funds that are working to solve social challenges in developing regions, not only in Africa, but throughout the world.