African startups are making significant progress. In this context, the digital economy platform FollowICT highlights the top startup news across Africa over the past week.
Edge Growth Raises $21.9M in First Close of Venture Debt Fund for African Scale-ups
Edge Growth Ventures, the investment arm of South Africa-based Edge Growth, has announced the first close of its Edge Impact Fund (EIF) at R350 million (US$21.9 million). The fund aims to provide growth capital to tech-enabled companies that need additional funding without giving up more equity. The fund took more than three years to establish and was anchored by two South African financial institutions.
The fund targets growth-stage companies typically between Series A and Series C, with minimum annual revenue of R20 million (US$1.2 million), a proven business model, and predictable recurring cash flow. Its focus sectors include Fintech, Healthtech, Edtech and Greentech, with investments targeting companies in South Africa and selected markets across the continent.
Investment tickets will range between R20 million and R60 million, with financing available through term loans, working capital facilities, Venture Debt, convertible loans and revenue-based financing. The latter links repayments to the actual revenue generated by a business, providing greater flexibility for companies with seasonal cash flows.
The new fund builds on Edge Growth Ventures’ experience in venture debt, following the launch of South Africa’s first dedicated venture debt fund in 2022. The firm is targeting a final close of R750 million (US$46.8 million) by December 2027, which would significantly expand the capital available to African scale-ups.
Ventures Platform Closes $84M Fund II to Invest in Startups Across Africa
Nigerian venture capital firm Ventures Platform has reached the final close of its second institutional fund, VP Pan-African Fund II, at US$84 million, exceeding its original target of US$75 million. The new fund represents a major increase from the firm’s first institutional fund, which closed at US$46 million in 2022.
The fund will focus on Pre-Seed to Series A investments across a broader range of African markets, moving beyond the heavy focus on Nigeria that characterized the first fund. Target sectors include Fintech, Healthcare, Software and other technology-enabled services addressing major infrastructure and economic challenges across the continent.
Artificial Intelligence will also play an important role in the fund’s investment strategy, particularly in businesses using AI to reduce the cost of delivering products and services or create new business models suited to African markets. Ventures Platform has already started deploying capital, backing five companies in Kenya, South Africa and Egypt, with individual investments of up to US$3 million.
The fund attracted several new institutional investors, including the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Norfund, Alphatron and Ashesi University Foundation, as well as a consortium of family offices. Around 70% of investors from Fund I also returned for the second fund, highlighting continued institutional confidence in Ventures Platform’s strategy despite the more challenging global fundraising environment.
Intron Launches Sahara v2.5 to Enable Multilingual Voice AI Across Africa
Nigerian startup Intron has launched Sahara v2.5, a new version of its voice AI platform designed to address one of the major challenges facing AI systems in Africa: understanding conversations where users naturally switch between multiple languages.
Founded in 2020 by Tobi Olatunji and Olakunle Asekun, Intron initially developed a clinical speech recognition platform for Africa before expanding into financial services, telecommunications, legal services, government and call centers. The company raised US$1.6 million in a Pre-Seed round in July 2024 to strengthen its research and expand distribution.
Sahara v2.5 introduces bilingual speech recognition for mixed-language conversations across 12 African languages, including Zulu, Hausa, Swahili and Luganda. According to Intron, its published benchmarks show Sahara outperforming major global AI platforms, including Gemini, ElevenLabs and Meta, across all 12 languages tested.
The company believes this capability could significantly expand the use of voice AI across Africa, particularly in sectors such as healthcare, banking and telecommunications, where users frequently switch between local languages and English during everyday interactions.
Verascient Raises $1.2M Pre-Seed to Help Companies Build AI-Powered Teams
South African startup Verascient has raised US$1.2 million in a Pre-Seed funding round to help companies build more capable and efficient teams using AI. The Cape Town-based startup was founded by Keagan Stokoe and Emile Ferreira and is developing technology that enables organizations to integrate AI into their day-to-day operations.
Verascient transforms knowledge scattered across company documents, systems and employees into shared organizational context. It then uses that context to build workflows and AI agents that teams can use to perform tasks and access institutional knowledge more effectively.
The oversubscribed round was backed by Founder Collective, Andrena Ventures, Cambridge Enterprise and Summit Ventures, alongside selected angel investors including Alan Knott-Craig and Shayne Mann.
At the core of Verascient’s technology is a Temporal Knowledge Graph, which is designed to build and maintain a comprehensive understanding of an organization while preserving information history, permissions and data provenance. The startup is betting that this approach can help businesses turn fragmented internal information into a secure knowledge infrastructure for AI agents.
Kenyan AI Startup Flowt Raises Pre-Seed Funding to Support Climate-Smart Businesses
Kenyan startup Flowt has closed an undisclosed Pre-Seed funding round to expand its AI-powered financial intelligence platform, which helps turn fragmented financial records from small businesses into lender-ready data. Founded by Elana Laichena and based in Nairobi, Flowt focuses on making Africa’s climate-smart businesses more accessible to financing.
The platform uses AI to analyze financial records and convert them into verified data that lenders can use to assess businesses and provide working capital. Its first financing facility was provided to GreenBay, a Kenyan circular commerce company that refurbishes and resells home appliances, solar equipment and other products.
The funding came from Delta40 Fund I, Impacc and Argidius Foundation and will support Flowt’s expansion across Kenya. The startup also plans to continue building its financial intelligence infrastructure to make small businesses more visible and understandable to lenders.
Flowt argues that one of the biggest barriers to small-business financing in Africa is the lack of reliable financial data. By lending against verified transaction histories, the company aims to make working capital faster and more affordable, particularly for businesses that lack the traditional collateral required by banks.
Nigeria’s ThriveAgric Raises $3.93M in First Commercial Paper Issuance
Nigerian agritech startup ThriveAgric has raised NGN 5.3 billion (US$3.93 million) through the first series of its Commercial Paper programme. The oversubscribed issuance exceeded its initial target of NGN 5 billion and marks the company’s first entry into Nigeria’s debt capital markets.
Founded in 2017 by Uka Eje and Ayodeji Arikawe, ThriveAgric connects smallholder farmers with financing, agricultural inputs and markets. The new funding will be used as working capital to purchase and aggregate produce from farmers before supplying it to food processors and FMCG companies, rather than financing crop production itself.
The company currently operates across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda, with Nigeria accounting for around 90% of its business. ThriveAgric serves more than 1.3 million Nigerian farmers, making it one of the prominent agritech platforms operating in the country.
The financing comes as African agritech companies increasingly explore alternative funding sources to support their expansion. For businesses connecting farmers with markets and supply chains, access to working capital is particularly important because liquidity directly affects their ability to purchase, aggregate and distribute agricultural products.