It’s hard to describe all that investors talked about at Moonshot 2025, ’s flagship conference, but three main themes stood out: a) how startups need financial discipline before attaining scale, b) how to pivot to engineered exits, and c) how more African VCs are increasingly turning to Asia for capital as many firms prepare to raise funds in Q1 2026.
For Olu Oyinsan, the managing partner at Oui Capital, engineering exits means backing businesses with a clear path to profitability. According to the investor who returned his first fund, startups should have a “fixed cost recovery mentality” that guides them to make more money than they spend on an operational fixed cost basis over time.
Some investors pointed to growing sophistication across the ecosystem as more founders now start pitch decks with a “path to profitability” slide,as funds are more hands-on in operationalising discipline. “Everyone’s playing moneyball now,” said one fund manager who asked not to be named to speak freely. “You need solid maths, a plan, and a clean cap table.”
“There’s less focus on burning cash… more focus on ensuring the business model is sustainable before massive scale,” said Samuel Frank, an associate at Sahara Impact Ventures, a Ghanaian climate tech fund, echoing the focus on discipline for startups.
As LP appetite cools across Europe and the US—typically the first ports of call for African VC fund managers—many firms are turning to Asia for capital that’s more patient and philosophically aligned with long-term investments, two investors told on the sidelines of Moonshot.
In late August, Japan’s development finance institution, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), signed on as a limited partner in Novastar Ventures, a $200 million fund. That same month, Uncovered Fund, a Japanese firm focused on early-stage investing in Africa, partnered with Monex Group, a Tokyo-based financial services company, to back startups across Africa and the Middle East with a $20 million fund.
This LP shift may reshape the types of companies that get backed and the timelines they’re judged by. If those deals help close funds, the expectation is that pre-seed and seed startups will see an uptick in funding but with smaller cheques.
For Freda Isingoma, the senior fund manager at Octopus Investments, deeper local capital pools, especially at Series B and C, are essential to unlocking more exit opportunities for African startups. Isingoma pointed to the UK’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) as a possible model: a secondary exchange where smaller, high-growth firms can go public under lighter regulatory burdens.
While it might be difficult for African startups to list on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), which hosts around 110 African companies from over 20 countries with a combined market capitalisation exceeding $110 billion, AIM has less stringent requirements.
AIM has helped mid-sized companies access public capital without the cost and complexity of listing on the main London Stock Exchange. Isingoma suggested that African startups consider dual pathways: listing an equity line into an international exchange to attract liquidity and institutional investors while keeping their operational base and growth engine local.
