Catalyst Fund secures $30 million to support African climate startups

Pan-African climate venture firm Catalyst Fund has closed a second round, bringing total commitments to $30 million as it approaches a final close later this year. The debut fund — led by partners Maelis Carraro, Maxime Bayen, Olúwatóyìn Emmanuel-Olubake and Amolo Ng’weno — targets investments from pre-seed to Series A in startups addressing climate resilience across agriculture, food systems, energy, water, mobility and fintech, with a goal of backing 40 ventures across Africa. Investors in the second close include IFC, FASA, Shell Foundation, Trafigura Foundation, Speedinvest, Blink Impact, private investors, and earlier backers FSD Africa and Cisco Foundation; Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We‑Fi) has joined to strengthen the pipeline of women-led startups.

“This second close allows us to double down on our mission: backing ambitious founders building practical, scalable solutions for a climate-changed world and supporting them not just with capital, but with the hands-on venture-building support they need to grow,” said Maelis Carraro.

Fund model and key backers

Catalyst Fund combines equity investment with an embedded venture-building model delivered through operational support from BFA Global. The firm says this hands-on approach helps founders refine strategy, hire, build commercial traction, secure partnerships and prepare for follow-on fundraising — addressing a common gap where early-stage ventures receive capital but lack practical infrastructure to deploy it effectively. IFC signalled its support for that approach, framed as a commitment to help early-stage ventures scale sustainably and attract private investors.

• Committed capital: $30 million total at second close, with a final close expected later this year.
• Notable investor commitments: FASA contributed $5 million in junior equity to de-risk the fund and unlock co-investor capital, and pledged technical assistance to promising agriculture-focused portfolio companies.
• Trafigura Foundation’s investment marks its first impact investing deployment; Director Dario Soto-Abril said, “We aim to be catalytic, helping unlock additional capital into a space that is critical, yet chronically underfunded.”
• Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We‑Fi) joined to bolster women-led deal flow.

Portfolio examples and thematic focus

Catalyst Fund has already invested in 28 startups across 10 African markets, illustrating the breadth of its thesis. Portfolio companies cited include Keep It Cool — a 2024 Earthshot Prize winner building solar-powered cold-chain infrastructure for fisherfolk and poultry farmers in Kenya to reduce post-harvest loss — MazaoHub in Tanzania, which pairs AI-driven soil intelligence with agronomy support for smallholder farmers, and Bekia in Egypt, a tech-enabled circular-economy platform connecting households and businesses with recyclers to commercialise waste collection.

The firm frames climate adaptation as a defining investment theme for the coming decade in Africa, where disrupted rainfall, flooding, droughts and food insecurity are immediate threats. Catalyst Fund’s thesis holds that startups addressing those challenges represent both impact and commercial opportunities, and that early-stage capital plus operational support offers high leverage.

Outlook

With a target of 40 portfolio companies and a final close expected later this year, Catalyst Fund aims to continue deploying capital and venture-building resources across agriculture, energy, water and mobility. Backers such as FASA and Trafigura Foundation view their commitments as catalytic, intended to de-risk opportunities and attract further private investment into a sector that fund managers say remains underfunded relative to the scale of climate risk in Africa.