Top 5 Retail VC Funds &amp; Investors in South Africa (May 2026)

The road to success is long. Re-defining an industry requires passion, perseverance, and true grit. At Icon Ventures, we help entrepreneurs with true grit navigate the journey to become icons of tomorrow.

Investment focus

Industry: Software, Information Technology, Enterprise Software
Stage:Series C, Series B, Series D
Geography: United States, Israel, Canada

Investor stats

Total investments: 164
Round size: Series B $11M–$30M; Series C $8M–$35M; Series D $5M–$60M
Lead/follow: 37% lead, 63% follow
Last fund: May invest from a new fund soon — last raise in 2018

Portfolio highlights

Rockset — Build blazing fast search and AI applications in record time.
Midi Health — Expert care for women 40+. Made for midlife. Delivered by experienced clinicians. Covered by insurance. Book a visit today.
Maven Clinic — Maven helps companies retain diverse talent, improve health outcomes, and reduce maternity and fertility costs. We support every path to parenthood: Pregnancy, Fertility, Egg Freezing, Adoption, Surrogacy, Infant Care, Breastmilk Shipping, and Manager Training.

Show all investments...

Founded in 2015, CRE Venture Capital invests in early stage tech companies that are levered to Africa. CRE is headquartered in the New York metro area, with a regional office in Lagos, Nigeria.

Investment focus

Industry: Financial Services, FinTech, Software
Stage:Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
Geography: South Africa, Nigeria, United States

Investor stats

Total investments: 49
Round size: Seed $300k–$5M; Pre-Seed $250k–$3.3M; Series A $1.1M–$20M
Lead/follow: 27% lead, 73% follow

Portfolio highlights

Sava — Sava is a multi-management platform that provides an unlimited number of virtual cards as well as automated accounting reconciliation.
Stitch — One API integration for all online payments across South Africa. Accept Instant EFT, debit + credit card, cash, direct deposit and debits. Manage + reconcile digital payments and send payouts.
Bettr — Bettr is a digital banking app for creator. Download the app to get your zero monthly fee digital bank account and virtual card. Join our community of creators, gamers, influencers, freelancers, tiktokkers, streamers, YouTubers and digital gig workers.

Show all investments...

Savannah Fund is a seed capital fund specializing in US$25,000-US$500,000 investments in early stage high growth technology (web and mobile) startups in sub-Saharan Africa. Initially focused on East Africa, the fund aims to bridge the early stage/angel and venture capital investment gap that currently exists in Africa. The Fund expects toachieve this objective by combining capital with mentor networks both in the region and from Silicon Valley via an accelerator program and a follow-on independent seed fund.The fund is managed by an experienced and technology savvy team that have founded companies or are actively involved in angel investing or having run successful accelerator programs in past but also understand the unique Subsaharan African environment. They are backed and supported by both local, regional and international networks of angels,venture capitalists whose expertise we can draw on to help startups succeed and scale to fully fledged regional or global companies.They believe in the potential for Africa to become a global technology innovator by creating sustainable for profit companies that create jobs and make an impact.

Investment focus

Industry: E-Commerce, FinTech, Information Technology
Stage:Seed, Series A, Pre-Seed
Geography: Kenya, United States, South Africa

Investor stats

Total investments: 36
Round size: Seed $25k–$3M; Pre-Seed $200k–$2.1M; Series A $750k–$8M
Lead/follow: 33% lead, 67% follow
Last fund: May invest from a new fund soon — raised $25M in 2021

Portfolio highlights

Oze — OZÉ brings African small businesses into the digital era. It is an app that makes it easy for businesses to track sales, expenses, and customer information. The data is analyzed to provide tailored recommendations, reports, and business education. If the entrepreneur needs a little extra support, an OZÉ Coach is just a click away. As they are usingOZÉ to manage their business and learn how to run it better, we are learning about them. Using this data and machine learning, we can predict their credit risk and provide them with affordable capital from our banking partners. With over 20,000 registered users, OZÉ is the largest online community of SMEs in Ghana. The most exciting thing is that OZÉ works; 97% of businesses that have used OZE for at least 9 months are growing or profitable or both!
Root — Programmable insurance that you can integrate into your product or service with ease
Afropolitan — Afropolitan is building a Network State to unleash the maximum potential of Africans around the world. Are you interested? Join us with your email.

Show all investments...

Vumela was established in 2009 by FNB Business Banking and Edge Growth. The objective was to create an innovative model for the development of a sustainable and a financially and operationally independent investment business which invests in high growth small, medium and micro size enterprises with good economic and impact returns.Vumela wascapitalised in 2010. Within the first four years, we’d invested R90 million into eight high growth SMEs, and created a total of 400 jobs. They launched their second fund in 2015, after a further investment of R100 million from FirstRand and R127 million from the Jobs Fund. Within the first year of launching this second fund, we’ve committed R43 million to five investments that are expected to create over 1800 new jobs.The first fund of its kind in South Africa, Vumela’s main goals are to invest in and develop entrepreneurial companies in order to help alleviate poverty in South Africa by creating jobs, and to generate a return for its beneficiaries: the Shalamuka Foundation and the FirstRand Group.

Investment focus

Industry: Education, Software, Primary Education
Stage:Seed, Debt Financing
Geography: South Africa, Brazil

Investor stats

Total investments: 14
Lead/follow: 79% lead, 21% follow
Last fund: May invest from a new fund soon — raised $12M in 2015

Portfolio highlights

Inoxico — Inoxico is a provider of business-to-business credit risk solutions. We combine quality data and cutting edge technology to deliver predictive analytics.
Kombo King — Kombo King Ventless Fryer Tech removes the need for plumes of steam & the constant eye of an inconsistent employee to Revolutionize & solve the frying industry!
Kusini Water — Kusini Water builds water treatment systems from nanotechnology and macadamia nut shells.

Show all investments...