Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures raises $43m
Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV) has raised $43 million as part of its ongoing fundraising for its pan-African venture fund. The fund’s initial backers include institutions such as SBI Holdings, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, and individual investors such as Osamu Kaneda.
VKAV is the first fund by Verod-Kepple Africa Partners, a joint venture between Verod Capital and Kepple Africa Ventures. Launched in 2022, VKAV invests in scalable, tech-enabled, post-revenue businesses addressing difficult challenges across various industries on the continent.
VKAV’s current investments include Moove Africa (multiple markets: smart vehicle finance for mobility entrepreneurs); NowPay (Egypt: financial wellness for employees); Koko Networks (Kenya: clean cooking technology company); Ceviant (Nigeria: treasury management and trade finance); Chari (Morocco: B2B e-commerce for FMCG); Shuttlers (Nigeria: Affordable and reliable shared mobility); Nawy (Egypt: end-to-end platform powering property transactions); and Julaya (Francophone West Africa: neobank for businesses in Africa).
VKAV partner Satoshi Shinada says, “We are convinced that there is a tremendous opportunity for technology to drive innovation and growth in Africa. We are excited to spearhead this transformation through our investment in category-defining startups, and to create a positive impact on the communities they serve.”
“We are incredibly grateful for the confidence that our world-class set of investors have in our team and differentiated value creation strategy. We look forward to deepening the successful long-term partnership we have with them,” adds VKAV partner, Ory Okolloh.
Eric Idiahi, investment committee and portfolio review committee member at VKAV and partner at Verod Capital commented, “Verod Capital is delighted to partner with Kepple Africa Ventures. Their formidable experience combined with Verod’s strong performance track record investing in West Africa for 15 years, plus its history of returning capital to investors, provides a solid platform to showcase a unique model for venture capital in Africa that combines investment experience with hands-on support across the board – from fundraising, to fixing operations gaps, sourcing talent and accelerating expansion.”
Keiichiro Nakazawa, senior vice president at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) said, “This will be our first investment in the African VC sector. We consider it as a critical step for us as a development agency to integrate technology innovations and fast-growing ecosystems into the broader arena of social and economic development in developing countries. We believe that VKAV is the best partner to materialise this vision, and expect to have multi-faceted collaborations with them.”