Afrikons Capital's New Continuity Fund Offers a Hint at Where Late-Stage African VC Is Headed

Afrikons Capital — no relation to this publication, a coincidence its partners have stopped apologizing for — closed a $220 million continuity fund this week, structured to buy secondary positions in African companies at Series C and later and to lead follow-on rounds in the same names.

Continuity vehicles are common in mature private markets and nearly unheard of here, for a structural reason: there have been very few African companies old enough and large enough to need one. That is changing. The firm's own screen identified 47 continental companies past $20 million in annual revenue with investors holding positions older than seven years — a cohort that barely existed in 2020.

"Every seed fund on this continent has the same problem, which is that their 2018 winners are still their 2018 winners," said partner Lindiwe Sithole. "The companies are fine. The fund life is not. Somebody has to be willing to buy the position, and until now that somebody was a foreign strategic or nobody."

The signal matters more than the size. A functioning secondary market lets early funds return capital without forcing an exit, which in turn makes the next early fund easier to raise. If Afrikons Capital's vehicle performs, expect three more like it within eighteen months — and a late stage that no longer requires a founder to relocate to find it.