Madica, a structured pre-seed investment programme for African startups, has raised $6 million from Flourish Ventures to extend its investment pilot by three years. The fresh capital will fund between 25 and 30 additional early-stage companies across the continent, building on a three-year track record that has begun to challenge assumptions about where venture-scale businesses can emerge in Africa.
Madica launched in 2022 to test whether founders in neglected markets, sectors, and networks can build globally competitive businesses with the right capital and hands-on help. Since then, the sector-agnostic programme has backed 18 startups across 10 countries and 12 sectors, pairing patient pre-seed funding with structured support for building each company.
By Madica’s account, those startups have attracted additional funding worth, on average, twice its own investment, which it reads as an early sign of investor confidence. Emmanuel Adegboye, Head of Madica, said the programme was an experiment from the start, and that gathering meaningful evidence would take years of investment, support and learning.
“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,” he said in a statement.
Who Madica is backing and why it matters
The composition of Madica’s portfolio is as significant as its size. Every company it has backed is majority-owned by Africans. More than half have at least one female co-founder. Thirty-nine per cent are led by female CEOs.
These numbers do not reflect a diversity quota; rather, they reflect a deliberate decision to look for founder talent in places that established venture capital networks have consistently failed to reach.
The breadth of applications to the programme reinforces that point. Pitches have come from founders across 28 sectors and 78 countries, with 40% of applications originating outside Africa’s four largest venture capital markets. The entrepreneurial potential exists, but the funding infrastructure to meet it has not done so.
Madica’s model is designed to address that problem. Beyond writing cheques, the programme pairs capital with structured, hands-on company-building support. It works with founders at the stage before most institutional investors are willing to engage.
The extended pilot gives Madica the chance to track how a larger cohort of companies translates early traction into sustained business growth, and whether that model can consistently generate the kind of outcomes that would encourage other investors to adopt similar approaches.
Efayomi Carr, Investment Partner at Flourish Ventures and co-founder of Madica, said the first three years had strengthened rather than shaken the programme’s founding belief.
“We retain our conviction that with the right capital and support, exceptional talent across Africa can build world-class businesses,” Carr said.
The additional funding keeps Madica open to new applicants. Eligible startups must have a minimum viable product with paying customers, at least one founder working full-time, little or no institutional funding to date, and must be headquartered in Africa.
Read also: Madica invests $1 million in 5 African startups, including Nigeria’s ChipMango
Technext Newsletter
Get the best of Africa’s daily tech to your inbox – first thing every morning.
Join the community now!
