Verod-Kepple Africa Ventures (VKAV) has announced a final close of US$60 million for its pan-African venture fund, which invests in scalable, tech-enabled, post-revenue startups addressing difficult challenges on the continent.
Formed in 2021 as a joint venture between Kepple Africa Ventures (KAV), a Japanese venture capital firm, and Verod Holdings (Verod), an African growth capital private equity firm, VKAV is led by partners Satoshi Shinada, Ryosuke Yamawaki, and Ory Okolloh.
The VKAV Fund is its first investment vehicle, and will leverage the accumulated knowledge and skills of the two companies to invest in startups across Africa, focusing on early-stage companies that are working to solve social challenges in the region.
Having announced a first close of US$43 million in March 2023, the VKAV Fund has now finally closed at US$60 million, with key institutional investors in the fund including SBI Holdings, Toyota Tsusho Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Japan International Corporation Agency, and Japan ICT Fund.
New investors joining the final close include SCM Capital, formerly known as Sterling Capital Markets Limited, from Nigeria and a few additional institutional investors from Japan, including Taiyo Holdings and C2C Global Education Japan.
With a focus on growth stage companies, VKAV is tackling the growing gap of funding available, particularly from locally-based investors, for companies moving to Series A and B stages in Africa. The fund will focus on three key themes – companies building digital infrastructure across different sectors; inefficiency solvers who are solving for friction primarily between businesses or between businesses and consumers; and market creators who are creating economic opportunities for people, based on the changing dynamics of the overall African economy and demographics.
The fund has so far backed 12 companies including Moove Africa, KOKO Networks, Ceviant, Chari, Shuttlers, Nawy, Julaya, NowPay, Chefaa, Cloudline, Zone, and mTek-Services.
