Moonshot 2025: What African VCs mentioned

It’s arduous to explain all that buyers talked about at Moonshot 2025, TechCabal’s flagship convention, however three most important themes stood out: a) how startups want monetary self-discipline earlier than attaining scale, b) tips on how to pivot to engineered exits, and c) how extra African VCs are more and more turning to Asia for capital as many corporations put together to boost funds in Q1 2026. 

For Olu Oyinsan, the managing companion at Oui Capital, engineering exits means backing companies with a transparent path to profitability. In response to the investor who returned his first fund, startups ought to have a “mounted value restoration mentality” that guides them to make more cash than they spend on an operational mounted value foundation over time.

Some buyers pointed to rising sophistication throughout the ecosystem as extra founders now begin pitch decks with a “path to profitability” slide,as funds are extra hands-on in operationalising self-discipline. “Everybody’s taking part in moneyball now,” mentioned one fund supervisor who requested to not be named to talk freely. “You want stable maths, a plan, and a clear cap desk.”

“There’s much less give attention to burning money… extra give attention to guaranteeing the enterprise mannequin is sustainable earlier than large scale,” mentioned Samuel Frank, an affiliate at Sahara Impression Ventures, a Ghanaian local weather tech fund, echoing the give attention to self-discipline for startups. 

As LP urge for food cools throughout Europe and the US—usually the primary ports of name for African VC fund managers—many corporations are turning to Asia for capital that’s extra affected person and philosophically aligned with long-term investments, two buyers informed TechCabal on the sidelines of Moonshot. 

In late August, Japan’s growth finance establishment, the Japan Worldwide Cooperation Company (JICA), signed on as a restricted companion in Novastar Ventures, a $200 million fund. That very same month, Uncovered Fund, a Japanese agency centered on early-stage investing in Africa, partnered with Monex Group, a Tokyo-based monetary providers firm, to again startups throughout Africa and the Center East with a $20 million fund.

This LP shift could reshape the kinds of firms that get backed and the timelines they’re judged by. If these offers assist shut funds, the expectation is that pre-seed and seed  startups will see an uptick in funding however with smaller cheques.

For Freda Isingoma, the senior fund supervisor at Octopus Investments, deeper native capital swimming pools, particularly at Collection B and C, are important to unlocking extra exit alternatives for African startups. Isingoma pointed to the UK’s Various Funding Market (AIM) as a attainable mannequin: a secondary alternate the place smaller, high-growth corporations can go public underneath lighter regulatory burdens.

Whereas it is perhaps troublesome for African startups to listing on the London Inventory Trade (LSE), which hosts round 110 African firms from over 20 nations with a mixed market capitalisation exceeding $110 billion, AIM has much less stringent necessities.

AIM has helped mid-sized firms entry public capital with out the fee and complexity of itemizing on the primary London Inventory Trade. Isingoma recommended that African startups take into account twin pathways: itemizing an fairness line into a world alternate to draw liquidity and institutional buyers whereas conserving their operational base and progress engine native.