Kola Aina needs no introduction. As the founding partner of Ventures Platform, a $46 million early-stage fund, he has been a central figure in African venture capital for the past decade.
His firm has backed more than 90 startups across the continent, including Paystack (exited in 2020), PiggyVest, Omniretail, Lemfi, Raenest, Thrive Agric, and MaaD. The firm has also returned four of its six investment cohorts.
Before he founded Ventures Platform, Aina had already been active as an investor, backing startups like Moniepoint while running Emerging Platforms, a tech firm he founded that built custom edtech, enterprise, and security products.
It’s probably why he told me he would be an edtech founder if he were not an investor.
As a sector-agnostic firm, Ventures Platform (VP) invests in companies that tackle non-consumption, close infrastructure gaps, and expand prosperity in Africa by lowering access barriers and cutting the cost of delivering goods and services.
The firm can invest up to $1 million across the pre-seed, seed, and Series A stages, and has portfolio companies in all of Africa’s four regions.
Outside of investing, Aina helped champion the Nigeria Startup Act process with the Presidency and other ecosystem leaders like Iyin Aboyeji and Adia Sowho. He is also the pioneer advisory board chair of the Yemisi Shyllon Museum of Art (YSMA) and an art patron.
For this week’s Ask an Investor, I spoke to Aina about how Africa’s tech ecosystem has matured in recent years, why his firm’s thesis has not changed, the rise of local investors on the continent, his firm’s exits, the future of his firm and exits, why he wished he invested in Moove, what early-stage founders should never do, his preference for former operators as colleagues and why his firm is investing in Francophone Africa. There’s also some advice for founders based on the art industry.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
How has the past year been for your firm?
The past year has been good, really good. I think, generally speaking, with the slowdown in the markets from the highs of 2021, we’ve seen a scenario where only the most clear-conviction, serious founders and investors are active.
You know, there’s a lot more high-quality activity going on. The cream is rising to the top. There’s less herd behaviour, less capital blindly chasing deals. Everyone is showing up correctly.
It’s also been good in the sense that encouraging folks to focus on capital efficiency and solid unit economics is now the standard. It’s been a season of growing up across the ecosystem, which makes our job easier, generally.
You said there’s less herd mentality. Can you explain a bit more about that?
What I mean is, the ecosystem is going back to what it was pre-2020. Building a startup is a very hard endeavour. Investing is difficult. It’s not about vibes.
There’s less fanfare now, and folks are more focused on doing this for the right reasons. That’s leading to higher quality on both the founder side and the investor side.
Has anything changed about your thesis in the last 24 months?
No. Our thesis hasn’t changed. It’s always been focused on funding market-creating innovations that can capture Africa’s opportunities, make a significant impact, and deliver returns. That thesis has stood the test of time and remains evergreen.
If anything, we’re more convinced about it now. The biggest change is that, while we’ve always invested in other markets, we’re now being very deliberate about making investments outside Nigeria.
We just hired an investor in Francophone West Africa to deepen our reach and ability to support companies. We’re intentionally building capacity outside Nigeria to do more in those markets.
I spoke to Dotun (VP’s managing partner) last year about VP expanding to Francophone Africa. You’ve been active in Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. What’s driving that shift, and what are your expectations for the market? Have those expectations been met?
We take a first-principles approach to portfolio construction and expansion. For us to prioritise a market, it has to meet certain standards: Is there space and value in us investing there? Does it fit within our broader portfolio? Can we deliver venture returns in that market? Does the market have the enablers we need to deliver those returns?
On the first level, when we started looking at the region 2–3 years ago, it was one of the most underserved, particularly at pre-seed and seed. That was the first thing that qualified it.
The second attraction is that the region can be counter-cyclical. Its relative currency stability balances out markets like Nigeria, which are prone to devaluation. That helps portfolio construction.
The third point was testing if the market could deliver venture returns. We developed our “lake and ocean markets” framework: individually, many Francophone countries are small “lake” markets (populations below 50 million). But together, with shared language, regulatory frameworks, and currency, companies can more easily become regional. That expands the addressable market significantly.
Finally, we evaluated ecosystem readiness. Across all four criteria, the market met our minimum standards.
As for expectations, it’s too early to tell. Venture capital takes at least 10 years to know if you’re a good or bad investor. A lot of these experiments will show results in the coming years. But we’re pleased with some portfolio companies in the region that are already expanding regionally. We just hired an ex-operator investor for Francophone Africa. At VP, we only hire operators, so we’re excited to lean in more.
You mentioned hiring operators. I’ve noticed VP has a preference for ex-operators. Why is that?
Because we’re early-stage investors. At the early stage, entrepreneurs need more than capital; they need support in validating ideas, strategy, go-to-market, sales, business development, partnerships, and sometimes just a listening ear.
It’s tough for someone who hasn’t operated or built a company to provide that. You can’t give what you don’t have. Operators are the best fit for early-stage investing, especially in Africa’s informal, unstructured, permission-based markets.
This isn’t a dig at pure financial investors, but it’s Ventures Platform’s DNA. VP was founded while I was operating, and I wanted to leverage that experience to support founders. That’s still what we try to do today.
In Q1 2025, for the first time, there were more local than foreign investors on the continent. Why do you think that’s happening? And do you think it’s sustainable?
First, let’s separate two things: capital funded by locals (African LPs and angels) and capital managed by local fund managers (who might raise from anywhere).
Both are important. The key is having a healthy mix of local fund managers who understand the markets and can provide geographically relevant advice, which is hard to do from abroad.
As for sustainability, yes, some elements will continue. A big part of why it’s happening is that efforts to stand up local fund managers are now maturing. A few years ago, most VCs in Africa were foreign. But development finance institutions like IFC (Catalyst program), BII, Proparco, and AfricaGrow have done a fantastic job catalysing local fund managers.
At the same time, the post-2021 tourist capital pulled back. Without maturing local managers, the ecosystem would have been devastated. Q1 data reflects that coming-of-age moment.
There’s also growing local corporate and angel activity, but the bulk is local fund managers maturing. It’s a good thing. But more still needs to be done, especially to stimulate the angel ecosystem and unlock pension and sovereign funds to catalyse VC.
If you could pass one policy to unlock more local capital, what would it be?
I would implement the provisions in the Nigerian Startup Act. When we worked on that bill, we designed mechanisms that could unlock early-stage local capital. If properly implemented, it could have a real impact. I’m happy that some work is already going on in that regard by the current government.
Of course, ensuring pension funds can invest in VC and adding risk-sharing mechanisms are also good. But if I could do just one thing, I’d implement the Startup Act provisions.
Over the next decade, what do you think will be the most viable pathways for exits in Africa?
Secondaries will remain important not just in Africa, but globally. They’re a key way for early-stage funds to return capital.
I also expect strategic acquisitions to continue being important, and I hope we’ll see momentum around IPOs. Some work is going on, including in Nigeria, but it needs acceleration.
Another area is local mergers and acquisitions by corporates. For that to happen, startups need to build locally relevant, capital-efficient solutions that corporates can absorb. The main challenge is a mismatch between startup valuations and what corporates can pay. But as valuations normalise, I think we’ll start to see more local M&A.
Given startup valuations, do you think local companies can actually acquire them? For example, Flour Mills invested in OmniRetail, but could it acquire OmniRetail at its current valuation?
I can’t comment publicly on OmniRetail specifically. But the general point is that corporates invest for different reasons. The answer remains the same: if startups are built more capital-efficiently, their valuations and structures can align better with what local corporates can absorb.
When companies haven’t raised a lot of money but have built something technically advanced, very proprietary, or amassed a large customer base, then yes—we have to get the pricing right. And the way you do that is by building something that’s capital efficient. That’s what I hope to see, and I think the conditions for that are better today than they’ve ever been.
What needs to change structurally for exits to become more common? Is it more about what you just mentioned — capital efficiency — or more local capital, more corporate appetite, regulation, or a combination of all?
I think it’s a combination. If you consider the different exit paths, for strategic exits, we must remember that companies are ultimately acquired, not sold. And if you agree that the best companies are bought, then to be bought—as opposed to sold—you’ve got to build a great company that someone actually wants to own because they see something you have that is valuable.
From that standpoint, we all have to focus on building really great companies that will be sought after — particularly locking in unique local advantages, whether regulatory or local understanding — that make the companies we’re building very desirable. I think the same applies to secondaries: early-stage investors can really mind their path if they’re invested in sought-after companies. Again, those companies should be built to be category leaders with good governance, transparency, and so on.
If you think about IPOs, part of what I said earlier applies: how do we ensure our companies are highly capital efficient, not over-capitalised? Can we focus on having successful outcomes at different levels? If a company hasn’t raised a ton of cash, does it need to IPO for it to be a great outcome? Sometimes, when you benchmark outcomes for founders and early investors, it’s not necessarily better at higher valuations, considering dilution and all of that. We have to accept that you can have successful outcomes at different levels, and not every company has to be a unicorn. When we do that, we increase the chance of our exchanges being able to take some of these companies public.
And I think the exchanges also have work to do to create the environment for innovative companies to want to list locally.
To move on to Ventures Platform: talk to me about the exits you’ve recorded so far and how you were able to make them happen.
For us, it’s really about backing exceptional founders and helping them build companies and products that are highly desired. That’s been the throughline. Whether it’s strategic, like the Paystack exit — Paystack was bought, not sold — or some of the secondaries we’ve done that have returned some of our earlier vintages, those happened because we were early investors in sought-after companies.
The common thread is backing exceptional founders with a differentiated perspective, discipline, and grit. The third thing I’d say is ensuring companies have the right levels of governance and are acquirable from a due diligence standpoint, and supporting them to build out the vision and achieve scale. No one wants to buy a dud of a company. There are assets we have where we’re regularly courted by folks who want some skin in the game — because those companies are identified as category-leading and high-velocity.
It’s not rocket science. It’s pretty straightforward.
Can you talk about the exits you’ve recorded so far?
What do you want to know?
The companies — which ones you exited from, whether partial or full exits.
I can’t talk about our partial exits. I don’t think there’s value in naming specific companies. Obviously, everyone knows we had a full exit of Paystack. We also exited CrowdForce into FairMoney. Outside of that, we’ve done secondary exits in about six portfolio companies.
The main thing is that those exits have been at really great multiples that helped us return. To date, we’re investing out of six vintages — five syndicate funds and one institutional fund. We’ve returned four out of those six vintages from the exits we’ve done.
It’s been a key part of our strategy to ensure we’re recycling capital.
Speaking about the Paystack exit—it was a defining moment for the entire ecosystem. What lessons did you personally take from that deal about preparing companies for exits?
The biggest lesson is something I’ve said already: companies are bought, not sold. If you accept that the best companies are bought, not sold — yes, we’ve had to sell companies in the past, but once you get to the point where you’re selling a company, you lose leverage, because you’re either doing that because the company is running out of cash or for other reasons.
The takeaway for me is there’s no magic. Our job is to back the best founders, identify them early, help them build great cultures and products that later-stage investors want to own. We also have to invest with an exit orientation from the beginning, because that forces discipline around ownership targets and entry valuations.
Most of all, it’s a long game. Even though the Paystack exit was relatively short — we invested in 2016, exited in 2020, four years — that was unusual timing. It’s a long game. The founders are still actively working on the company, so the story isn’t over in that sense.
If you had to bet on one sector outside fintech that could produce similar breakout companies on the continent, what would it be and why?
I’m very excited about trade facilitation or formalisation, especially along the China–Asia–Africa corridor. If you then layer in stablecoins and what they mean for the speed and cost of settlement, it’s a vertical that can really transform our economies and the way business is done.
That corridor has significant volumes traded every year — tens of billions of dollars — and much of it is done inefficiently, at high cost and high risk. Cleaning that up and improving it can also expand the volume of trade. So yes, that’s one sector I’m really excited about at the moment. I believe a couple of significantly important companies will be built in that vertical.
Going back to Francophone and Anglophone Africa: how do you assess the differences between the two ecosystems?
The first difference is currency. The currency frameworks are fundamentally different. Mainstream Francophone countries tend to use the CFA and have more stable currency regimes.
The culture is also different. If you land in Lagos, you know you’ve landed somewhere exciting. Some of these markets have a very European/French culture. That doesn’t mean entrepreneurs aren’t smart or resilient—they’re just different. Different energy, different culture.
The markets are smaller. We might be comfortable backing a No. 2 or No. 3 in Nigeria or Egypt, but in some Francophone countries, we’d be more comfortable backing a No. 1 than a No. 2, given market size. And when we back a company in those markets, we’re looking for multi-country potential, leveraging the advantages we discussed.
What about your LPs — what do they think about secondaries?
LPs are very pleased. Experienced LPs know secondaries are part of the fund manager’s toolkit, particularly for early-stage managers.
For LPs invested across the capital stack, they’ll watch to ensure the market doesn’t have “constipation,” if you get what I mean — the folks buying the secondaries also have to recycle capital at some point. Perspectives differ depending on where you sit in the stack.
LPs are fine with it and appreciate that we can return capital to them — that tends to encourage repeat LPs.
What’s your most contrarian thinking about investing in Africa?
I don’t know that it’s contrarian, but Africa is probably the best example of uncorrelated alpha. That’s a message we need to do a better job of getting across to the rest of the world, particularly U.S. investors. Africa represents the best opportunity for non-consensus alpha.
What do you mean by that?
A key part of portfolio allocation is ensuring good diversification. For a global fund manager or capital allocator, Africa is one of the best opportunities to diversify your portfolio in a non-consensus way.
My message to global capital allocators is: dial up your Africa allocation. If you look at the demographics and everything else, Africa represents the best opportunity for diversifying the portfolio.
For you personally, is there any company you missed that would be in your anti-portfolio?
The one company I wish I backed is Moove. I really love the company and what they do. I love companies that go from Africa to the world. We have a couple in our portfolio — for example, LemFi started in Nigeria but is now in multiple countries around the world. I think more African entrepreneurs need to do that. Moove is the one company I wish I had backed early.
What’s your view on AI for Africa? How should startups build AI products for Africa?
Ultimately, every company is an AI company. At a minimum, you have to think about how to leverage AI to gain efficiency or reduce costs. With the advent of low-code today, companies can iterate and experiment much more quickly. So, at a minimum, every company should leverage AI.
Beyond that, there are uniquely African challenges that AI can solve. I’m particularly excited about what voice AI can do for the least-connected communities around the continent. With minimal smartphone penetration, voice AI presents an opportunity to ensure large portions of our population have access.
So yes, at minimum, think about how AI makes you more efficient; beyond that, we’re looking at uniquely African AI use cases. In our portfolio, we have a company called Lega AI doing incredible stuff in Francophone and Anglophone Africa, working with manufacturing companies and FMCGs, leveraging AI. We’re excited to support more companies in that space.
You work with a lot of early-stage founders. What’s one thing early founders should avoid?
Are you asking for common mistakes founders should avoid?
Yes, early-stage founders.
The one piece of advice I’ll give: culture compounds. Good culture compounds; bad culture compounds. I often see early-stage founders assume, “We’ll deal with that when we get bigger”—they postpone difficult conversations and defining culture. Because culture compounds — good or bad — it often becomes too late.
I’d encourage early founders to be intentional about the culture they want from the early stage. It has a compounding effect, whether good or bad.
From your involvement in the arts, what can tech learn from the art market? How can the tech startups you back learn from the art market you’re involved in?
I think some of the best pieces of art, or artists, are making works that tell a personal story. In my mind, that’s synonymous with the “why” of a company. I often challenge companies: Why are you building this company and not another? Why is this important to you personally?
That’s similar to how I’m drawn to art that’s meaningfully relevant to the artist producing the work.
Another translation: there’s no artist without a collector, gallerist, or patron. Similarly, there’s no early-stage founder — at least VC-backed — without a community of investors, customers, and employees. It’s important that founders can manage and nurture that community because it makes the journey easier. Those are the two transfers.
Mark your calendars! Moonshot by is back in Lagos on October 15–16! Join Africa’s top founders, creatives & tech leaders for 2 days of keynotes, mixers & future-forward ideas. Early bird tickets now 20% off—don’t snooze! moonshot..com
