Madica, a structured pre-seed investment program focused on African startups, has announced US$600,000 in new investments split across three ventures — Tanzania’s Kilimo Fresh, Kenya’s Hakimu, and Nigeria’s Biovana — each receiving up to US$200,000. The deal, which brings Madica’s portfolio to 14 companies and cumulative deployment to around US$2.6 million since its 2022 launch, is part of the program’s broader mission to back founders and sectors traditionally excluded from mainstream African venture capital. The three startups join Madica’s 18-month support program, which combines capital with mentorship, executive coaching, and fully funded immersion trips to global technology hubs. Alongside the announcement, Madica also released its first fundraising guidebook for early-stage African founders.
Key Overview
- Investment size: US$600,000 total, with up to US$200,000 per startup.
- Beneficiaries: Kilimo Fresh (Tanzania, agritech), Hakimu (Kenya, legal AI), Biovana (Nigeria, health data).
- Program structure: 18-month curriculum with mentorship, executive coaching, and two fully funded immersion trips.
- Portfolio milestone: Madica’s portfolio now stands at 14 companies, with cumulative deployment of about US$2.6 million.
- New resource: Release of “Zero to Funded: A Founder’s Guide to Pre-Seed Fundraising in Africa,” a 75-page guidebook.
- New mentor: Tauriq Brown, former CEO of TooMuchWiFi, joins as a mentor.
- Diversity goal: Madica targets at least 50% gender diversity in leadership teams, a goal it is currently exceeding.
- Market context: Africa’s “Big Four” — Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa — still capture more than 80% of continental startup funding.
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Madica Widens Its Pre-Seed Net Across Three Countries
Madica, a structured investment program focused on pre-seed African startups, has announced new investments in three tech-enabled ventures: Kilimo Fresh, Hakimu, and Biovana, as it deepens its commitment to backing founders often excluded from traditional venture funding. Each startup has secured up to US$200,000 in funding and will participate in Madica’s 18-month program, which provides a tailored curriculum, hands-on mentorship, executive coaching, and fully funded immersion trips to leading technology ecosystems locally and internationally.
The investment, announced on April 8, 2026, brings Madica’s total portfolio to 14 companies and its cumulative deployment to approximately US$2.6 million since the program’s 2022 launch. Participants will also gain access to Madica’s global investor network to support their growth trajectory.
Launched in 2022 and affiliated with Flourish Ventures, Madica was created to address structural gaps in Africa’s startup ecosystem, including limited access to capital, a shortage of investors, and insufficient mentorship. By supporting underrepresented founders and startups operating in underserved regions and sectors, the program aims to drive more equitable distribution of venture funding across the continent.
Three Startups, Three Sectors, Three Countries
The newly backed startups span agriculture, legal technology, and health data — three verticals that receive only a fraction of Africa’s tech funding relative to fintech.
Tanzania-based Kilimo Fresh, co-founded by Baraka Chijenga and Justice Mangu, connects smallholder farmers to urban markets through a technology-enabled supply chain designed to reduce food waste. The company aggregates, processes, and distributes fresh produce, aiming to cut post-harvest losses and improve farmer margins — a pressing challenge in East Africa, where significant portions of smallholder output spoil before reaching buyers.
In Kenya, Hakimu, co-founded by Rawan Dareer, Ahmed Ahmed, and Ahmed Elbashir, is building a pan-African legal infrastructure powered by artificial intelligence. Legal tech remains a relatively nascent segment on the continent despite increasing interest in digitising professional services, and the platform seeks to expand and simplify access to legal processes across multiple jurisdictions.
“Joining the Madica portfolio is a significant moment for Hakimu. We’re revolutionising access to justice across Africa, and having a partner that understands the specific challenges and opportunities of scaling in Africa makes a real difference,” said Rawan Dareer, co-founder and CEO of Hakimu. “We’re grateful for the trust, looking forward to the hands-on support, and clear-eyed about the work ahead.”
Nigeria’s Biovana, founded by Estelle Dogbo and Dr. Jumi Popoola, focuses on harmonising and certifying African health datasets for global pharmaceutical, AI, and clinical research use. The startup is notable not only for its specialised niche — African health data remains drastically underrepresented in global research databases — but also for being co-founded by two women, reinforcing Madica’s gender-diversity focus.
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A Structured Program, Not Just a Cheque
Madica’s model is deliberately more than a capital injection. Each startup joins an 18-month support program that combines a tailored curriculum, hands-on mentorship, executive coaching, and two fully funded immersion trips to key technology hubs within Africa and abroad. The program’s team and portfolio companies were set to convene in Morocco from April 6 to 13 for an immersion trip held alongside GITEX Africa, where founders would participate in workshops, expert-led sessions, and networking opportunities with investors and ecosystem stakeholders.
Emmanuel Adegboye, Head of Madica, framed the latest additions as part of a deliberate portfolio-building strategy. “Each new investment brings us closer to the portfolio we set out to build, one that reflects the full breadth and diversity of African entrepreneurship. These three startups join a growing community of founders we’re backing with the resources, relationships, and runway they need to succeed at this early stage. The opportunity across the continent is enormous, and we’re committed to being a crucial and consistent partner in realising it,” he said.
The program also announced the appointment of Tauriq Brown as a mentor. Brown, a former CEO of TooMuchWiFi with experience at Rocket Internet and Mountain Partners, will support founders with execution-focused insights aimed at accelerating growth.
Targeting the Pre-Seed Funding Chasm
Madica is deliberately positioning itself in what is arguably the most fragile stretch of the African startup lifecycle. Pre-seed funding remains one of the most constrained stages for African founders. In Q1 2024 alone, pre-seed funding across the continent totalled just US$3.6 million, a figure that illustrates how thin the market is for founders without institutional networks.
The structural imbalance extends beyond stage to geography. Africa’s “Big Four” startup markets — Nigeria, Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa — continue to dominate capital allocation. According to data from Africa: The Big Deal, the Big Four accounted for about 82% of all start-up funding in 2025, a proportion that has remained remarkably consistent since 2019, fluctuating between 80% and 86%. This dominance is striking given that these four countries represent only about 30% of Africa’s population and roughly 40% of its nominal GDP.
Kenya has emerged as the top destination for start-up funding in 2025, nearly reaching the US$1 billion mark — an achievement not seen in any single African market since 2022. Yet in 26 African countries, no deal above US$100,000 could be identified during the year, highlighting the persistent unevenness of the continent’s start-up ecosystem.
Gender imbalance is another structural gap. Female-founded startups received just 7% of total equity funding in 2024, and by some measures that share dropped further in 2025. Madica has set out to build a portfolio with at least 50% gender diversity in leadership teams and says it is currently exceeding that goal, with a significant portion of its portfolio having female CEOs. Biovana, co-founded by two women, extends that pattern.
Why Madica’s Model Matters Now
The timing of Madica’s latest cheque is significant. African startup funding has shown signs of rebound in 2025, marking the continent’s first year of year-on-year funding growth since 2022, driven largely by large late-stage deals in fintech and energy. But that headline recovery masks a widening divide: later-stage companies are attracting larger, often debt-led rounds, while early-stage founders — especially those outside the Big Four and outside fintech — continue to struggle for attention.
In Q1 2025, approximately 83% of startup funding was secured by companies based in the Big Four. Fintech alone captured about 46% of the total raised in that quarter, leaving sectors like agritech, legal tech, and health data to compete for the scraps.
By deliberately backing a Tanzanian agritech firm, a Kenyan legal AI startup, and a Nigerian health data platform, Madica is betting that overlooked sectors and geographies will produce the next generation of African tech leaders if given the runway. “Madica noticed that most of Africa’s funding went to fintech, the Big Four markets, and male founders,” one account of the program’s strategy noted, framing its mandate as a direct response to those patterns.
A Guidebook for First-Time Founders
In addition to the funding announcement, Madica has released the first edition of its fundraising guidebook series, Zero to Funded: A Founder’s Guide to Pre-Seed Fundraising in Africa. The 75-page resource is aimed at early-stage founders navigating their first fundraising round, particularly those without strong networks or prior experience.
The guide covers common misconceptions that can derail early investor conversations, explores the trade-offs of venture capital, and provides practical templates and checklists for founders. It addresses local market dynamics, investor expectations, and the question of whether raising venture capital is the right path in the first place — a deliberate nudge away from the assumption that all startups should be VC-backed.
The resource reflects a broader shift in how Africa-focused funds are approaching their portfolio support: recognising that capital alone does not bridge the gap between a promising MVP and a venture-ready company. Founders outside established hubs often lack access to informal knowledge — how to structure a pitch deck for local investors, how to evaluate term sheets, how to manage dilution, how to think about valuations in hard-currency terms when operating in a soft-currency market. Madica’s guidebook is an attempt to codify that knowledge and put it into the hands of founders who would otherwise need personal networks to access it.
Pan-African Reach and What Comes Next
As part of its broader efforts to strengthen its pan-African reach, Madica continues to invite applications from startups across the continent that have a minimum viable product, early traction, and full-time founding teams, but have received little or no institutional funding. The program selects startups that demonstrate paying customers and full-time founders, using these as proxies for founder commitment and market validation.
The latest cohort’s sector diversity — agritech, legal tech, and health data — mirrors the program’s thesis that structural under-funding in non-fintech sectors represents opportunity rather than risk. For the founders involved, the Madica package combines what is often hardest to secure at the pre-seed stage in Africa: patient capital, operator-led mentorship, and access to networks that extend beyond a single market.
For the broader African venture ecosystem, Madica’s methodical approach stands in contrast to the larger, flashier rounds dominating headlines. Its cheque sizes are modest, its timelines are long, and its selection criteria favour founders that most funds would pass over. But as the data continues to show a persistent concentration of capital in a handful of markets and sectors, programs like Madica may prove to be one of the few reliable on-ramps for the kind of entrepreneurs whose ideas would otherwise never make it to a term sheet. Whether that model can scale to meaningfully shift the continent’s funding map is a question the coming years will answer — but for Kilimo Fresh, Hakimu, and Biovana, the runway just got a little longer.
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