Why Launch Africa returned $2.5 million to investors after 11 exits

Launch Africa, the pan-African venture capital firm with more than 180 portfolio startups, has returned $2.5 million to investors in its first fund after completing 11 exits, joining the small group of African investors that have actually returned liquidity to limited partners (LPs).

African venture capital has had a returns problem. Funds were raised aggressively between 2018 and 2022, deployed across hundreds of startups, and then hit the same wall as the rest of the global venture market in 2022, when exits began drying up.

According to Carta, the cap-table software firm, only just over half of 2020-vintage funds had returned any capital to LPs by the end of 2025, and roughly 15% of the nearly 2,900 US venture funds made their first distribution only during 2025. In Africa, the picture has been worse.

Speaking at the Africa Prosperity Summit in November, Ventures Platform’s Kola Aina estimated that around $20 billion has been committed to African VC since 2020, against a benchmark expectation of $40 to $60 billion in returned capital by 2035. The gap is wide, and it is now the central conversation in African private capital.

However, that conversation is slowly starting to shift because a handful of firms have begun returning money. In January 2025, Oui Capital, an early-stage VC firm, told its LPs it had returned its $4 million debut fund in full, after partially exiting its $150,000 stake in Moniepoint for $8 million when the Nigerian fintech became a unicorn.

Launch Africa Ventures has now joined this small group of firms generating realised DPI. The Mauritius-domiciled, pan-African early-stage fund said it has returned roughly 7% of paid-in capital on the $36 million vehicle. Of the 11 exits, five were full, and six were partial.

Eight were secondaries to other VCs and growth-stage investors, and three were trade sales or management buyouts. The largest realised multiple was 5x; no position came in below 1x.

The exits span seven sectors, five in fintech, plus one each in payments infrastructure, agritech, logistics, B2B commerce, HR software, and employee wellness and six countries: South Africa (three), Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania, and Egypt.

The exits make Launch Africa’s first fund distributed to paid-in capital (DPI)-positive, putting it ahead of more than half its global peers from the same vintage. DPI is a term used to measure the total capital that a private equity fund has returned thus far to its investors.

In our conversation, Launch Africa managing partners Zachariah George and Janade du Plessis explain why they chose to begin returning capital in year five rather than waiting for the fund to end, why their fund one no-follow-on strategy actually made these exits easier, and what they have changed about portfolio construction in fund two.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Of the 11 exits, how many were secondaries, and how many were full exits or partial exits?

Janade du Plessis: From a partial versus full perspective, out of the 11, five were full exits, and six were partial exits. Of those, we can say one was a proper M&A; the exit in Egypt was a majority takeover, where someone bought 50% plus one of the company. Across all 11, the split between secondaries and non-secondaries was about eight secondaries and three trade sales or management buyouts.

Zachariah George: Peach Payments is a good example. The Series A happened about a year ago. We sold our shares to a very prominent South African VC fund that wanted to get onto the cap table of Peach, alongside Enza Capital. 27four and Enza bought our stake concurrent with the closing of their Series A round, which was led by Apis. We sold our entire stake and made close to a 5x return, cash on cash. It was a full exit through a secondary to fellow VCs in the ecosystem, which I think is a beautiful story. That is how you build infrastructure. That is how you build the rails in a maturing ecosystem.

What was the reasoning behind full exits in some cases and partial exits in others?

Zachariah: The reason we did a full exit with Peach was that we have known the Peach management team for more than five years; Junade and I personally have known the founder for more than 10 years. Typically, you get really good multiples when you exit as part of a round. If you try to exit between rounds, there is not that much liquidity, so you get slightly lower multiples.

When we spoke to Peach, they were not planning a Series B for at least another two to two and a half years. Our fund life is technically close to that time. We did not want to run the risk of waiting two or possibly three years for future liquidity at Series B. Because Peach is a really good fintech company, we did not want to sacrifice some return if a round did not happen in time. We made the decision to sell our full stake now, and we got a really good, almost full price of the primary.

Janade: We come back to the team and say, Listen, we wanted a 10x, but we have a 5x on the table. How does that fit within the portfolio? How does it fit with the strategy? We evaluate everything that comes in. Most of the time, we say no because the exit opportunity was not right.

With Peach, we had offers on the table for two years. It was the right story for Peach right now; it was good for our investors, and it was excellent for Peach. The confluence of all those factors made it the right thing at the right time. A lot of the time, we just say no.

Janade: We also had a management buyout as part of our exits, which is very positive for the ecosystem. When founders have enough operating cash flow to pull back their own equity, that is a sign of a growing and mature ecosystem. Technically, two of the exits were management buyouts.

What would you say was the main reason you decided to return capital now? Is it because of the normal VC timeline, or was it something else?

Zachariah: March 2026 is the end of our fifth financial year at Launch Africa. Most venture capital funds in Africa have not really returned capital to LPs; it has not been a top priority for most fund managers. We have a very diverse LP base across the world: more than 40 countries, a mix of individual retail, fund-of-funds, CVCs, and family offices. We wanted to do the right thing by them and make sure they get a fair return on their capital early, not just wait until year seven, eight, nine, or 10.

When you return capital early, even if it is slightly less than what you could have returned by staying longer, it instils confidence in the ecosystem that capital can be returned and then reinvested into the next generation of startups. If there is no early return of capital, LPs simply will not invest in more funds, because they cannot see liquidity in their investment.