NovaStar Funds

Day-to-day decisions rest with co-founders Steve Beck and Andrew Carruthers, who serve as Managing Partners. Beck brings a development-finance and impact-investing background, while Carruthers contributes operational and emerging-markets private equity experience. The team operates a flat structure where investment committee decisions draw on senior professionals in Nairobi and Lagos.

The firm relies on in-country teams embedded in Nairobi and Lagos, supplemented by relationships with development finance institutions that co-invest across the region. Carruthers and Beck have publicly emphasized on-the-ground networks and extended pre-investment relationship-building as primary origination channels, rather than auction processes. The firm also leverages its DFI partners' portfolio company networks for co-investment visibility.

Novastar operates as an institutional venture capital fund manager, not a family office. Its limited partners are primarily European development finance institutions — including British International Investment and Norfund — alongside strategic corporate investors such as SBI Holdings. The firm raises committed capital through blind-pool fund structures.

The firm makes direct equity and structured capital investments into operating companies across East and West Africa. It does not operate as a fund-of-funds. Its own vehicles, such as the Africa People + Planet Fund, are structured as direct-investment closed-end funds, with DFIs as anchor LPs.

Novastar invests from seed through Series B stages, with a historical emphasis on Series A and early-growth rounds. The firm targets companies with existing revenue and proof of unit economics, avoiding pre-revenue concepts. Its hold period typically extends beyond standard venture timelines, reflecting the capital-intensive infrastructure buildout its portfolio companies require.

The Africa People + Planet Fund explicitly links climate resilience with income generation for low-income households, a dual mandate not formalized in the earlier East Africa Fund I or Pan-African Fund II. The strategy screens for ventures that reduce environmental vulnerability while providing goods, services, or livelihoods to base-of-the-pyramid populations. DFI commitment terms for this vehicle include blended-finance tranches that earlier funds did not feature.

Co-founder Vijay Angadi serves as Managing Director of both Novastar Funds' India operations and ICF Ventures, a separate vehicle with overlapping managerial DNA. While the two platforms maintain distinct investment mandates, the Bangalore office provides operational and analytical support to the Africa-focused funds. The arrangement reflects Carruthers and Beck's view that emerging-market venture platforms benefit from multi-jurisdictional infrastructure.