The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development provides project financing and banking products to banks, industries and private enterprises, including loans for projects, equity and quasi-equity investments, equity funds for smaller enterprises, guarantees and trade finance. It also offers policy reform dialogue and advisory services and supports loan syndication. The bank assists privatization and restructuring of municipal services and invests across sectors such as energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, finance, telecommunications and real estate in Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East and North Africa, with a focus on market transition and private sector development. Founded in 1991 and headquartered in London, it seeks to promote sustainable growth, job creation and higher living standards through financial support, advisory services and policy reform.
Beyond Capital is a nonprofit, evergreen impact investment organization that supports social enterprises in India and East Africa by providing seed funding, management advisory, pro bono resources, and mentoring, and reinvests all returns to maximize social impact. It targets early-stage and revenue-generating ventures focused on improving access to health care, sanitation, clean energy, agriculture and food security, and financial inclusion for low-income communities. The organization operates across India and East African countries such as Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, and Uganda, and has mobilized substantial pro bono services to amplify its impact.
Ecosystem Integrity Fund is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm focused on environmental sustainability. It invests in early-stage companies across energy, transportation, climate tech, agriculture, water, waste management, green chemistry, and related areas, seeking to demonstrate that positive environmental outcomes can accompany compelling financial returns. The firm targets opportunities in North America and Europe and has supported portfolio companies through multiple funds since its founding in 2010. Investment sizes vary by vintage, ranging from hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of dollars, with early funds typically at the lower end and later vintages deploying larger checks as opportunities permit. Its work emphasizes ESG considerations and impact alongside growth, combining sector expertise with strategic guidance to accelerate the transition to a more sustainable economy.
Admaius Capital Partners is an impact investing firm headquartered in Kigali, Rwanda, founded in 2021. The firm focuses on making investments in companies across several sectors, including digital infrastructure, financial services, fast-moving consumer goods, healthcare, and education, with an emphasis on opportunities within Africa. Admaius Capital Partners aims to generate positive social and economic outcomes through its investment strategies.
European Investment Fund is the EU's financing arm for small and medium-sized enterprises and mid-caps, providing financial instruments to improve access to affordable financing for businesses across their lifecycle, with a focus on innovation, growth, competitiveness, social impact and sustainability. The EIF leverages its capital base to foster public-private partnerships and allocates guarantees and equity funding to catalyze lending and investment for startups and small businesses throughout Europe, including EU member states, candidate countries and EFTA countries. It collaborates with partners to close funding gaps and support entrepreneurship and economic resilience.
AHL Venture Partners is a venture capital firm founded in 2007 that pursues growth capital investments in Africa, focusing on energy access, financial inclusion, agriculture, climate, food, and human capital sectors. It favors minority equity, quasi-equity, and debt investments and supports portfolio companies with ongoing capital and strategic guidance to accelerate growth. The firm aims to generate financial returns while driving inclusive economic development across Eastern and Southern Africa and promoting climate action and sustainable development. It operates with offices in Nairobi, Lusaka, Accra, and Vancouver.
GAIA Impact Fund is a venture capital firm that specializes in renewable energy and builds long-term partnerships with startups operating in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. It emphasizes environmental and social impact and backs businesses that enable sustainable and affordable energy provision to local communities. In regions with carbon-intensive energy mixes, the firm supports technological innovations and viable business models that enable cost-efficient, large-scale diffusion of renewable energy.
Seedstars Africa Ventures is a venture capital firm based in South Africa, founded in 2020, that provides early-stage capital to high-growth companies across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Novastar Ventures is a Kenya-headquartered venture capital firm that funds early-stage to growth companies across Africa, with a focus on markets serving the base of the pyramid. It backs ventures in healthcare, education, energy, housing, sanitation, agriculture, financial services, information technology, and consumer and business services, targeting both East and West Africa as well as international opportunities. The firm typically commits between $0.25 million and $8 million and operates from offices in Nairobi, Lagos and London. As a venture catalyst, it partners with entrepreneurs to turn ideas into scalable businesses that create value for the many and pursue enduring, impact-driven outcomes aligned with ESG principles.
Moxxie Ventures is an early-stage venture firm based in San Francisco with additional offices in New York City and Boulder. The firm backs exceptional founders building in software, enterprise infrastructure, fintech, healthcare, climate, and consumer technology, and it emphasizes supporting teams with deep operational resources and a broad network of engineers, product and marketing leaders to accelerate growth. Its team comprises former operators and founders from leading tech companies, enabling practical guidance and hands-on collaboration from inception through early scaling. The firm invests early and seeks to be a trusted partner for founders across North America, offering strategic value, operational support, and a focus on helping products and businesses improve life and work.
AlphaMundi is a Switzerland-based impact investing firm that provides debt and equity financing to scalable, purpose-driven ventures across sectors including microfinance, affordable education, fair trade agriculture, renewable energy, fintech, rural microfinance, and affordable housing for low-income households. It emphasizes measurable social impact alongside financial returns and supports development-oriented opportunities through capital deployment and co-investments. Beyond investing, AlphaMundi contributes to the field through education, publications, and industry initiatives to promote impact investing among banks, pension funds, foundations, and family offices.
Trucks Venture Capital is a California‑based early‑stage venture capital firm focused on the transportation sector and related technologies. Based in San Francisco, the firm backs startups advancing the future of mobility, including autonomous, connected and shared vehicle solutions.
Incofin Investment Management is an impact investment firm based in Antwerp, Belgium, founded in 2001, focused on financial inclusion for rural and agricultural sectors in developing countries. It invests in microfinance institutions and small- and medium-sized enterprises through debt and equity and guarantees, and may participate in other private equity or microfinance funds, aiming to support intermediaries serving rural poor, smallholder farmers and agricultural value chains. The firm typically seeks minority stakes and may sit on the boards of MFIs, while prioritizing portfolio diversification and impact; its activities span Africa, Asia, Latin America and other regions, with a particular emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa and developing markets. It maintains offices in Bogota, Chennai, Nairobi, Luxembourg and Phnom Penh to support its global investments.
Intercept Ventures is a California-based venture capital firm headquartered in Oakland that concentrates on technology investments in fintech, mobility, cloud, data, and cybersecurity in the United States. The firm targets growth-stage technology companies and supports startups with scalable, innovative solutions.
ValueStream Ventures is a New York-based venture capital and accelerator founded in 2013 that concentrates on seed and early-growth investments in B2B platforms driven by high-value data. The firm focuses on software, data analytics, SaaS, fintech, and enterprise data, with a preference for companies leveraging data assets to create defensible propositions and scalable growth. It supports portfolio companies through targeted business development, strategy guidance, and hiring opportunities, and emphasizes data infrastructure as a core driver of value. The team maintains a hands-on approach, identifying opportunities around data assets and guiding companies toward growth financing, while backing ventures that demonstrate product-market fit and revenue traction. The firm has experience across financial services, healthcare, and technology, and has expanded capabilities to cover qualitative user research, medical insurance, and supply chain transparency.
SBI Investment is the corporate venture capital arm of SBI Holdings, based in Tokyo. It makes venture capital and growth investments across information technology, fintech, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cybersecurity, e-commerce, biotechnology and life sciences, healthcare, energy and environmental sectors, with a regional focus on China, Southeast Asia and Korea. It backs seed and growth-stage companies and aims to exit through IPOs and M&A, while also managing venture funds to support business development and the growth of core industries in the 21st century.
SOSV is a global venture capital firm founded in 1995 and headquartered in New Jersey. The firm focuses on seed-to-growth investments in deep tech sectors, including biotech and life sciences, hardware and robotics, and cross-border software with emphasis on markets in Asia. It supports startups from early stages with investment capital as well as resources such as laboratories, collaborative spaces, and expert mentorship to accelerate product development and market traction. SOSV operates purpose-built programs to help portfolio companies raise follow-on funding, scale operations, and reach customers, often through structured matchmaking and access to a global network of investors. With a broad portfolio spanning hundreds of companies worldwide, SOSV aims to foster innovation, build vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems, and contribute to sustainable technological advancement.
VestedWorld is a Chicago-based venture capital firm that invests in high-growth companies across Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on agribusiness, consumer products and services, and technology-enabled businesses. The firm aims to foster economic development and job creation by partnering with entrepreneurs to remove barriers to capital access and by providing capital, governance involvement, and direct strategic and operational support to help portfolio companies scale and achieve competitive returns for investors.
Investisseurs & Partenaires is an impact investment firm focused on African small and medium enterprises. Founded in 2002, it provides capital, technical and strategic support to portfolio companies to foster growth, job creation, and local value, while pursuing social, environmental and governance impact. The organization supports a network of pan-African funds and sponsors several Africa-facing impact funds, including initiatives in electricity access, with a team of about 30–40 professionals based in Europe and Africa. The firm emphasizes long-term partnerships and hands-on assistance to help entrepreneurs strengthen strategy, governance and operations across sectors such as health, transport and microfinance.
Future Africa is a Lagos-based venture capital firm established in 2016. It invests in early-stage startups across a broad range of sectors, including agriculture and environment, data and artificial intelligence, e-commerce and consumer goods, education, jobs and talent, finance and blockchain, food and hospitality, health and wellness, media and entertainment, mobility and transport, real estate, technology, software and infrastructure. The firm operates as a collective of mission-driven founders and funders, aiming to build unicorns and address Africa’s biggest challenges while promoting purpose and prosperity for a broad segment of society. Through collaboration with entrepreneurs and ecosystem partners, Future Africa supports startups to grow and innovate across the continent.
Costanoa Ventures is an independent venture capital firm based in Palo Alto, California, founded in 2012 by Greg Sands. It concentrates on early-stage B2B technology companies, investing in enterprise software, data and analytics, applied artificial intelligence, developer infrastructure, fintech, cybersecurity, and national security sectors. The firm partners with entrepreneurs to support product-market fit and go-to-market execution, aiming to help create durable, data-driven businesses. It pursues a long-term, hands-on approach and has raised multiple funds to support sequential rounds as portfolio companies scale.
Ground Squirrel Ventures is a venture capital firm founded in 2018 and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The firm focuses on climate change mitigation by investing in frontier markets and clean energy, supporting early-stage companies with global reach. Its activity centers on Africa, with additional investments in Haiti, Asia, and Latin America.
Climate Capital is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm established in 2018 that invests in early-stage climate technology companies. It backs startups across sectors including clean energy, energy storage, electrification, manufacturing, robotics, supply chain, infrastructure, industrial decarbonization, and resilience, with a focus on companies that directly or indirectly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The firm aims to accelerate climate innovation by leveraging a broad network of founders, investors, and partners to identify and support scalable solutions. Climate Capital seeks to help portfolio companies scale technologies that lower emissions and enhance climate resilience, contributing to a more sustainable economy.
Swedfund is a government development finance institution based in Stockholm, with an office in Nairobi, established in 1979. It mobilizes capital and expertise for investments in private markets across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, including direct investments and fund of funds activities. It finances a range of instruments, from equity to loans and other debt-like structures, and supports knowledge transfer and equipment upgrades, including depreciation loans to Swedish small and medium-sized enterprises. It pursues minority investments, typically in the range of 5 to 100 million SEK, with board seats and participation in investment committees, and aims for exits in five to ten years. It operates as a bilateral development financier within the European Development Finance Institutions network.
Polaris Partners is a Boston-based venture capital firm, founded in 1996, that backs technology and life science companies across the United States and Europe. The firm invests across stages, from founding to profitable growth, with a focus on sectors including software, healthcare information technology, digital health, life sciences, biotechnology, and genomics. Polaris Partners partners with repeat entrepreneurs and supports portfolio companies with strategic guidance, operating help, and resources to accelerate growth. The firm maintains offices in Boston and San Francisco and administers affiliate funds to structure its portfolio, including Polaris Innovation Fund and Polaris Growth Fund, reflecting long-term partnerships with founders and teams to bring transformative therapies and technologies to market.
Factor[e] Ventures is an impact investing firm and venture builder that funds early-stage companies developing sustainable solutions in energy, mobility, agriculture, water, and waste. The firm focuses on emerging and frontier markets, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, with activity in East Africa and India, and operates globally through activities in Fort Collins, Colorado, and Nairobi, Kenya. It seeks to bridge philanthropic and commercial capital to support market-driven, decarbonized development, providing financial backing along with strategic and operational support to entrepreneurs. By investing in disruptive technologies and business models across mobility, energy, agriculture, water, and related sectors, Factor[e] Ventures aims to accelerate scalable solutions in fast-growing markets.
Knife Capital is an independent growth equity investment firm based in Cape Town, South Africa, with an office in London. It backs innovation-driven ventures that have demonstrated traction and seeks to accelerate their international expansion by leveraging knowledge, networks, and funding. The firm focuses on scaling African businesses that have achieved product-market fit in a beachhead market, supporting cross-border growth and global reach. Knife Capital collaborates with a consortium of funding partnerships, including SARS section 12J venture capital structures and select family offices. Founded in 2010, the firm has facilitated exits of local technology companies to major buyers such as General Electric, Visa, Garmin and Uber, underscoring a track record of practical scale and value creation.
Founded in 2020, Five35 Ventures is a South Africa-based venture capital firm dedicated to investing in early-stage African technology startups with a focus on female-led businesses.
Story Ventures is a New York City-based venture capital firm founded in 2016 that backs early-stage technology companies. The firm focuses on investments in sectors including sensory systems, data infrastructure, and intelligent software, supporting entrepreneurs who leverage technology and data to transform how people interact with the world.
CRE Venture Capital is a venture capital firm focused on early-stage technology companies with ties to Africa. Founded in 2015, it funds founders developing technology-driven solutions for the African market and provides resources to help them scale and become industry leaders. The firm is described as based in the New York metropolitan area with a regional office in Lagos, Nigeria, and also has offices in New Jersey.
Khosla Ventures is a California-based venture capital firm founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park. It provides capital and strategic guidance to technology companies across stages, investing in sectors including artificial intelligence, digital health, sustainability, climate tech, and consumer technology. The firm seeks startups with innovative technologies or business models and offers hands-on support to help build enduring companies. It manages multiple funds and runs initiatives such as Khosla Impact, which supports high-impact for-profit ventures addressing the needs of low-income populations and emerging markets. Through funding and guidance, it backs transformative technologies and scalable businesses in the United States and globally.
Singularity Investments is a venture capital firm specializing in start-up and early-stage investments in technology, media and telecommunications, with a focus on Africa and North America. Based in Lagos, Nigeria, and maintaining a U.S. presence, the firm prefers to lead investments and typically takes board seats, providing strategic value through its network and experience to help portfolio companies scale. It targets mobile and web-based services, software and technology, digital infrastructure, and digital media and entertainment, and generally makes equity or equity-linked investments ranging from about 0.2 million to 2 million dollars, with potential for additional follow-on investment. Singularity seeks ambitious entrepreneurs to build disruptive ventures that shape the future.
Commerce Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2013 that invests in early-stage and growth capital across commerce-focused technology. The firm concentrates on mobile, retail and e-commerce, payments, fintech, insurtech, and banking technology, and supports portfolio companies with strategic guidance, industry connections, and resources to scale commerce innovations. Its investors include leading entrepreneurs, senior executives, and corporate partners from the focus sectors, and it emphasizes backing founders from diverse backgrounds to advance the next generation of commerce and financial services infrastructure.
Courtside Ventures is a New York-based venture capital firm founded in 2015 that backs early-stage companies operating at the intersection of sports, technology, media, lifestyle, gaming, and esports. The firm leverages specialized industry networks and domain knowledge to provide ongoing strategic support across operations and partners closely with management on long-term growth. It is registered as an investment adviser.
Norrsken22 is a growth equity investment firm based in Cape Town, South Africa, founded in 2016, that partners with entrepreneurs to build technology companies across Africa. It targets investments in medical technology, education technology and fintech sectors and supports growth of companies across the continent.
Latitude is a London-based venture capital firm and sister fund to LocalGlobe, investing in emerging breakout companies linked to LocalGlobe as well as ambitious founders more broadly. The firm backs startups across seed, early, and later stages, and has been an early investor in notable companies such as TransferWise, Zoopla, Improbable, Robinhood, Citymapper and Secret Escapes, as well as growing stars including Tessian, TravelPerk, Flow Commerce and Raisin.
Zephyr Acorn is a venture investment entity affiliated with Zephyr Management that provides equity financing and hands-on business support to innovative early-stage companies in East Africa. It invests across sectors with the aim of helping portfolio companies scale locally and extend their growth across the continent and beyond.
Nimble Partners is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm founded in 2019. It operates as a multi-stage investment platform that partners with investors and innovators through fund commitments, direct investments, and secondary transactions across the lifecycle of private technology companies. The firm engages in venture funding, growth investments, and secondaries, supporting seed and early-stage managers as well as established companies seeking expansion or readiness for an IPO. Backed by a team with decades of experience and deep industry knowledge, Nimble Partners aims to foster growth and create transformative outcomes.
The Fund for Export Development in Africa is an impact investment arm of the African Export-Import Bank that supplies equity, quasi-equity, and debt to bridge the multi‑billion‑dollar funding gap in Africa’s trade sector. It targets a broad range of sectors, including intra‑African trade, value‑added export development, manufacturing, financial services, technology, consumer and retail goods, transport and logistics, agribusiness, and supporting trade‑enabling infrastructure such as industrial parks. The fund seeks to transform the continent’s trade landscape by providing capital where it is most needed.
Kepple Africa Ventures is a venture capital firm founded in 2019 and based in Tokyo, Japan, that provides seed-, early-, and later-stage financing to African startups, with a focus on information technology, fintech, and consumer sectors.
Everywhere Ventures is a New York–based venture capital firm founded in 2017 that operates a community-powered platform linking capital, mentorship, and guidance from hundreds of founders and operators who serve as limited partners. The firm uses ten micro funds to invest primarily at the pre-seed stage, supporting early entrepreneurs across the money, health, and work verticals.
Founded in 2017, Beta Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Lagos, Nigeria, with a presence in New York. It supports Africa's leading tech entrepreneurs by investing in early-stage companies, focusing on sectors such as logistics, energy, and healthcare. The firm uniquely helps African startups grow organically while scaling globally.
LocalGlobe is a UK-based venture capital firm in London that focuses on seed and impact investing and has supported early-stage UK founders since 1999. It has backed notable companies such as Citymapper, Improbable, Lovefilm, Moo, Tweetdeck, TransferWise, and Zoopla. The firm has established multiple funds over the years and invests across sectors including software, fintech, e-commerce, consumer services, cybersecurity, digital health, insurtech, AI and machine learning, TMT and transportation.
Chandaria Capital is a Nairobi-based venture capital firm that invests in healthcare, technology, and consumer sectors across Africa. Founded in 2017, it supports entrepreneurs through mentorship and collaboration to build innovative, scalable companies with potential to transform the continent.
Finnish Fund for Industrial Cooperation is an economic development agency and investment organization based in Helsinki, Finland, established in 1980. It finances private sector projects in developing countries and, where relevant, via Finnish-linked ventures, with a focus on sectors such as renewable energy, sustainable forestry and agriculture, financial institutions, and digital infrastructure. The organization seeks minority equity and debt solutions, typically investing EUR 1 million to 10 million per project and often taking up to 30 percent of a company's capital. It structures investments as equity, mezzanine financing, investment loans, or combinations thereof, and frequently co-invests with other development finance institutions. It also finances microfinance and infrastructure ventures and supports initiatives that use Finnish technology. The aim is to generate environmental or social benefit and to contribute to sustainable development in developing countries and transition economies, including Russia, with an annual deployment target in the low hundreds of millions of euros across multiple companies.
Susa Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture capital firm established in 2013 that concentrates on early-stage technology investments. The firm backs pre-seed and seed rounds across sectors such as enterprise software, fintech, healthcare technology, data platforms, analytics, and developer tools, with an emphasis on software and data-driven businesses that can become market makers. It maintains a multi-office footprint in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York, and supports portfolio companies across the United States. By funding early-stage companies in the technology sector, Susa Ventures aims to partner with founders to build scalable businesses and transform their markets.
Duro Ventures is a venture capital firm founded in 2013 and based in San Francisco. Led by General Partner Sundeep Ahuja, a serial founder and advisor, the firm backs mission-driven founders across early-stage companies in sectors including consumer technology, enterprise AI and software as a service, healthcare IT, education, fintech, e-commerce and climate and energy innovations. It typically makes initial investments ranging from about $10,000 to $500,000 plus, and maintains a portfolio with exits such as Truebill, Prodigy and Littlefund. The firm also operates a syndicate and is affiliated with Climate Capital and a sister firm, DVC, reflecting an expanded focus on climate-related opportunities.
Battery Road Digital is a venture capital firm based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Founded in 2015, it pursues investments across seed, early, and later stages, with a focus on frontier and emerging markets.
Seedstars is a Geneva-based venture capital and accelerator company focused on fostering entrepreneurship and economic development in emerging and frontier markets. It connects promising entrepreneurs with capital, mentorship, and networks through initiatives such as the Seedstars World Competition, Seedspace hubs, and a range of acceleration programs. The organization invests in high-growth ventures across sectors including financial services, healthcare, education, technology, and e-commerce, supporting early-stage startups from LatAm, Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Asia to scale and create impact.