Africa’s clean energy challenge is often framed as a problem of insufficient capital. While the continent faces an annual energy investment gap of hundreds of billions of dollars, venture capital (VC) plays only a marginal role in closing it.
Most renewable energy investment in Africa today comes from development finance institutions (DFIs), infrastructure funds, and blended finance vehicles. Venture capital, by contrast, remains largely on the sidelines. This is because much of Africa’s energy sector is structurally misaligned with the VC m
