Africa’s path to long-term prosperity depends on building acquisition-ready startups and strengthening the continent’s weak exit pipelines, leading investors and operators declared.
They disclosed this at the third annual Africa Prosperity Summit (APS) hosted by Ventures Platform in Lagos, where more than 250 private capital stakeholders convened to examine Africa’s liquidity constraints and chart a strategy that places exits, not just fundraising, at the centre of sustainable growth.
With the theme “Growing the Pie: Building the Pathways for Liquidity, Scale, and Enduring Returns,” the 2025 Summit brought together prominent leaders, including Temi Popoola, GMD/CEO of NGX Group; Tosin Eniolorunda, CEO of Moniepoint; Chirantan Patnaik, director of Venture Capital at British Investment International; and Lexi Novitske, general partner at Norrsken22. Across multiple sessions, experts underscored a shared message: Africa cannot achieve meaningful prosperity without companies that are structurally prepared for acquisition, listing, or other forms of exit.
Opening the summit, Kola Aina, founding partner at Ventures Platform, stressed that the continent is at a defining moment, stating, “Africa stands at a pivotal moment where liquidity, not just capital, is the defining lever for scale.”
Aina noted that Africa’s limited exit pathways and underdeveloped acquisition markets have slowed ecosystem maturity, warning that without deliberate efforts to build companies ready for M&A, strategic acquisitions, or listings, the continent risks trapping capital instead of recycling it.
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Aina outlined a clear roadmap: nurturing acquisition-ready companies, deepening corporate participation in exits, strengthening listing readiness, and developing Africa-specific liquidity mechanisms capable of generating enduring returns.
One of the standout moments of the Summit came from Chirantan Patnaik, whose keynote provided a data-backed analysis of capital deployment across Africa. By benchmarking Africa against Latin America and India, regions that once faced similar structural bottlenecks, he positioned Africa’s liquidity struggles within the arc of a typical emerging market growth curve.
Patnaik emphasised that Limited Partners (LPs) are increasingly prioritising distribution to paid-in capital (DPI) and predictable exit performance, underscoring the urgency for fund managers to evolve.
Discussions at the Summit also broadened the liquidity conversation beyond traditional equity. Participants explored venture debt, blended finance structures, and revenue-based financing as practical tools for strengthening scale while preparing companies for eventual exits. The consensus was clear: Africa’s next phase of growth will hinge on diversified instruments that support scale while reinforcing pathways to liquidity.
In a fireside chat titled “The Road to a Billion: Raising, Scaling, and Building Trust at Scale,” Dotun Olowoporoku, managing partner at Ventures Platform, and Tosin Eniolorunda of Moniepoint highlighted the operational discipline required to build scalable companies. They argued that billion-dollar African businesses will emerge not only from ambition, but from disciplined execution, strong governance, and market trust, qualities that also make companies attractive acquisition targets.
Data also took center stage as Michael Famoroti, Stears’ head of research, unveiled the African Exit Index, the first publicly accessible benchmark measuring exit performance across the continent. The Index promises to bring much-needed transparency, offering investors and policymakers a clearer understanding of acquisition trends, listing outcomes, and liquidity potential.
Industry leaders agreed that Africa’s prosperity hinges on more than capital inflows. The real test is whether the ecosystem can produce acquisition-ready companies that deliver consistent, verifiable returns and attract deeper pools of capital. The Africa Prosperity Summit, now in its third year, reaffirmed its role as a platform for shaping that future, one where liquidity, not fundraising hype, becomes the true engine of continental growth.
