Lighthouse Capital, an operator-led private equity firm, is in the process of raising a US$50 million private equity fund targeting high-growth mid-market businesses across South Africa and Kenya.
Founded in 2025 and headquartered across Johannesburg and Nairobi, Lighthouse Capital is an operator-led private equity firm seeking to invest in high-growth mid-market businesses across Africa. The firm combines long-term investment capital with hands-on operational expertise across manufacturing, fintech, agribusiness, and technology.
To support the fund’s establishment and international fundraising, Lighthouse Capital is working with DTOS Group, a leading trust and corporate management firm with extensive experience structuring cross-border investment vehicles for institutional investors across Africa, Asia and other global markets. Targeting a first close before the end of 2026, the fund will focus on investments in manufacturing, fintech, agribusiness and technology, making equity investments of US$5 million to US$10 million per portfolio company.
Lighthouse Capital enters the market with a robust pipeline of more than 20 qualified investment opportunities across its target sectors, positioning it to deploy capital swiftly following the fund’s first close. The firm said it has a structured value creation framework it implements in the first 100 days of every investment, focused on financial reporting, operational efficiency, governance, and commercial execution, which transforms founder-led businesses into institutions built to scale and attract long-term investment.
“Many high-potential businesses require more than capital to reach their next stage of growth. Through our fund, we seek to partner with long-term institutional investors who share our conviction that operational excellence is the key driver of sustainable value creation,” said Nico Christoforou, general partner and chief investment officer at Lighthouse Capital.
“The founders we are backing have already done the hardest part. They built profitable businesses in environments that would have broken most companies in more forgiving markets. We provide the operational infrastructure that allows those businesses to grow beyond one person,” said Anthony Muraya, CEO and general partner.
Edwin Mbugua, COO and general partner, said the Lighthouse Capital team was made up of “Africans investing in Africa”. “We wake up in Johannesburg and Nairobi, sit in traffic on Mombasa Road and in Sandton, and know which businesses are being built in our cities because we are part of those cities. When we back a founder, we are backing our neighbour, our colleague, someone whose children go to school with ours, or like ours. That proximity shapes how seriously we take the responsibility of being a good partner, and it is the reason we built Lighthouse Capital in the first place,” he said.