Cape Town, South Africa. Launch Africa Ventures, one of Africa's most active early-stage venture capital firms, has been appointed as the investment advisor for Phase One of the Botswana Tech Fund (BTF), a multi-stage targeted £50M venture fund digitizing businesses across Southern Africa.
The Botswana Tech Fund appointment forms part of Launch Africa's ‘managed accounts’ strategy, advising on third-party investment mandates. Southern Africa's digital economy is at an inflection point. Infrastructure has matured, internet penetration in Botswana stands at 80%, which is among the highest in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The opportunity lies in the application layer and infrastructure rails where there has been a scarcity of capital to support entrepreneurs operating in one of the continent's most underleveraged digitisation opportunities, yet they remain chronically underinvested relative to their scale and potential. BTF was created to close that gap: to find, back, and build the founders digitising Southern Africa's real economy.
The fund targets £50 million in total commitments. Phase One deploys up to £5 million. £1M across a pre-seed cohort and two to four growth-stage investments in primary and secondary opportunities. BTF is anchored by Pula Investments, the family office of Stephen Lansdown CBE, co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown.
The fund is led by managing partner Martin Davis, former CEO of FTSE 250-listed Molten Ventures, where he grew the portfolio to £2 billion in net asset value, and general partner Florence Bavanandan, who is Head of Platform and Operations at Launch Africa Ventures, where she oversees infrastructure across 170 portfolio companies and helped generate $3 billion in market capitalisation across their two funds.
Botswana ranks in the top five on the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, maintains one of the continent's most stable macroeconomic environments, and sits at the centre of the SADC bloc, a 16-nation market of over 370 million people.
For founders building businesses with regional ambitions, it offers regulatory credibility, a strategic geographic position, and direct connectivity to Southern Africa's largest trade corridors. BTF has established a partnership with the Botswana Innovation Hub, giving portfolio companies a physical base, proprietary deal flow, and integration into the broader national innovation ecosystem.
BTF operates a dual strategy designed to meet founders at their stage and grow with them.
The accelerator programme backs pre-seed companies who are based in Southern Africa with £25,000 to £100,000 in capital per cohort company, alongside structured support, market access, and hands-on operational guidance.
The growth strategy targets revenue-generating companies that are based in or expanding to Southern Africa from Seed through Series C, deploying £500,000 to £2 million per investment in both primary and secondary opportunities. Founders at this stage receive growth capital along with access to Launch Africa's continental network.
"The founders building in Southern Africa's frontier markets are operating in one of the most underleveraged digitisation opportunities on the continent," said Zachariah George, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Launch Africa Ventures. "They have been doing it largely without institutional backing, this is a fantastic opportunity for founders at every stage of their journey and will be truly catalytic for the ecosystem”
About Launch Africa
Ventures Launch Africa Ventures is a Pan-African venture capital firm founded in 2020, focused on early-stage African startups. The firm has deployed $65M across 170+ ventures in 25 countries, created over $3B in market capitalisation, and supported 300+ founders.
About the Botswana Tech Fund
The Botswana Tech Fund is a £50m multi-stage venture capital fund focused on backing technology and tech-enabled businesses across Southern Africa. Combining an accelerator-led pre-seed strategy with a primary and secondary growth programme, BTF targets the digitisation of the region's MSME economy. The fund is powered by Launch Africa Ventures and domiciled in Guernsey.