Viktoria Ventures, a Nairobi-based angel investment and startup support firm, has been named “Angel Network of the Year 2025” at the Africa Early‑Stage Investor Summit (AESIS), held in Cape Town.
The recognition by African Business Angel Network (ABAN) and VC4A underscores Viktoria Ventures’ growing influence and leadership in professionalizing angel investing and mobilizing local capital for startups across Africa.
“This award validates our mission to build the network, capacity, and community that drives African innovation forward,” said Stephen Gugu, CEO of Viktoria Ventures, as he accepted the accolade on behalf of the Nairobi-based firm.
Founded with the ambition of professionalizing early-stage investing on the continent, Viktoria Ventures has spent several years transforming what was once informal, ad-hoc angel investing into a structured, high-impact ecosystem.
That transition, from informal networks to organized syndicates capable of executing complex deals, was central to its recognition at AESIS.
At the heart of its success is the African Angel Academy (AAA), an investor-training platform. Through the AAA’s flagship “Angel Leads Program,” participants undertake a six-week self-paced curriculum, complemented by live masterclasses and hands-on technical support in deal structuring, due diligence, and portfolio building.
A tangible outcome of this learning-by-doing approach is the formation of the Moneva Syndicate, a group of 22 recently trained angel investors who successfully closed an investment in Afyalishe Wellness Ltd, a Kenyan functional foods company commercializing academic research into consumer-health products.
Such successes illustrate Viktoria Ventures’ strategy of moving investors from passive observers to active, deal-making participants, a shift that is slowly reshaping the early-stage investment narrative across Africa.
Viktoria Ventures’ impact extends well beyond Kenya. To date, the organization has trained 797 angel investors from 38 African countries, pairing capacity building with networks and access to curated deal flow.
Through strategic partnerships, including a collaboration with Africa: The Big Deal to provide alumni priority access to deal pipelines, the firm has helped build one of the most active early-stage investor communities on the continent.
Moreover, alumni of Viktoria’s programmes have risen to leadership positions in the broader ecosystem: among them is Yemi Keri, recently elected President of ABAN, a sign of Viktoria’s material influence over Africa’s angel investing landscape.
With the launch of AAA Cohort 13 scheduled for 2025, Viktoria Ventures has signaled an ambitious expansion plan to deepen investor engagement, bridging gaps in early-stage funding and empowering local capital to drive innovation.
The award and Viktoria Ventures’ growth come at a time when angel investing is increasingly recognised as a vital mechanism to address Africa’s early-stage funding shortfall.
By equipping individual investors with skills, structure, and community, angel networks like Viktoria are turning small checks into catalytic funding that can propel startups from idea to scale.
In many African markets, where traditional venture capital remains limited, foreign, or cautious, local angel networks offer a complementary path: quicker, more flexible, and attuned to the local context.
Viktoria’s success shows that structured angel investing can mature beyond hobbyist beginnings to become a mainstream asset class for early-stage ventures.
For a continent navigating funding gaps, talent drains and brain-drain, the rise of structured angel investing championed by Viktoria Ventures offers a promising alternative: one rooted in local capital, local talent, and local ambition.
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