Madica, a structured pre-seed investment programme for African startups, has secured US$6 million in additional capital from Flourish Ventures to extend its investment pilot by three years.
Launched in 2022, Madica is an Africa-focused pre-seed investment programme empowering underrepresented and underfunded mission-driven founders on the continent. The sector-agnostic platform, affiliated with Flourish Ventures, aims to empower entrepreneurs by providing funding and democratizing access to world-class company-building support.
The programme has so far backed 18 startups in 10 countries across the continent, most recently making three investments last month, and it is now set to invest in between 25 and 30 more ventures over the next three years with the additional US$6 million from Flourish Ventures.
Building on lessons learned and early signs of traction across its portfolio, Madica will also deepen its company-building support for exceptional founders underserved by established venture capital networks. The extended pilot will build further evidence for Madica’s founding conviction that these founders can build world-class businesses capable of generating venture returns when equipped with the right capital and support.
The 18 companies Madica has backed so far, across 12 sectors, have attracted, on average, twice Madica’s investment in additional funding, an early signal of investor confidence as they work towards the commercial outcomes needed to challenge prevailing assumptions about where venture-scale businesses can emerge in Africa.
The extended pilot will allow Madica to track how companies across a broader portfolio translate early traction into sustained business growth, examining the role of its investment and support model in that progress and assessing the potential to generate venture returns through exits.
“Madica was launched as an experiment to test whether pairing capital with hands-on company-building support could help overlooked founders building world-class businesses generate venture outcomes, and in many ways, our work sits at the intersection of the very many questions that underpin the state of early-stage venture investing in Africa. From the outset, we knew that gathering meaningful evidence would require years of investment, support and learning”, said Emmanuel Adegboye, head of Madica.
“Three years have given us valuable lessons and encouraging early signals, but building enduring companies and assessing venture outcomes takes longer. Flourish Ventures’ continued commitment gives us the capital to build on those lessons and test our conviction across a broader portfolio while deepening our company-building support. We want the resulting evidence to give other investors a model they can apply, shaping where funding goes and how founders are backed across Africa, well beyond Madica.”
Efayomi Carr, investment partner at Flourish Ventures and co-founder of Madica, said his company retained its conviction that with the right capital and support, exceptional talent across Africa can build world-class businesses.
“Madica’s first three years have strengthened that belief, and we are excited to continue backing the team as they help more entrepreneurs achieve that mission,” he said.