How LPs Can Evaluate Emerging African Fund Managers Beyond Track Record

For emerging managers, the spreadsheet often doesn’t exist yet in any meaningful form, and even where some data exists, a single early fund’s performance can be heavily skewed by one or two outsized outcomes, making it a poor predictor on its own. The best approach is evaluating a manager’s genuine potential for outperformance through a more qualitative, but still rigorous, lens, one that experienced LPs have refined specifically for markets where track records are thin by definition, not by red flag.

Assess Their Personal Stake in the Fund

How much of the manager’s own money is invested in the fund, alongside the capital they’re asking you to commit?

If a manager is asking institutional investors to commit millions while putting in only a token amount themselves, that’s worth pausing on, regardless of how strong the pitch deck looks. This single question often cuts through more noise than an hour of discussing strategy, because it forces a manager to demonstrate conviction with their own balance sheet, not just their words.

A meaningful personal stake, often cited as somewhere between 5 to 10% of a manager’s net worth, tends to produce far more disciplined stewardship of investor capital than a manager mostly focused on management fees and carry. This isn’t just a financial signal, it’s behavioural. A manager with real personal exposure makes different decisions in difficult moments, like a follow-on round on a struggling portfolio company, a decision to cut losses earlier rather than later, or a hard conversation with a founder who isn’t performing. When a manager’s own capital is genuinely on the line, those decisions tend to get made with more discipline and less sentiment.

It is also worth asking how that commitment was funded. A manager who took on personal debt or sold other assets to make their commitment is signalling something different, and arguably stronger, than one drawing from an already substantial pool of liquid wealth where the fund commitment barely registers.

Evaluate the Strength of the Team

You’re betting on the people, not the strategy on paper. A strong team in the African context tends to combine specific, complementary qualities worth probing directly, rather than assuming a strong resume on its own tells the full story.

The “Insider”: at least one partner with genuine on-the-ground operational experience, someone who has actually lived there, hired a local team, navigated a local regulatory approval, and learned firsthand why a go-to-market approach that works in Europe can fail entirely in West Africa. This is different from a consultant who flies in for diligence trips and produces sharp analysis without ever having had to manage payroll through a currency devaluation or navigate an unexpected regulatory shift.

The “Outsider”: a partner with international experience, perhaps from a fund or operating company in the US, UK, or Europe, bringing global best practices around fund governance, reporting standards, and a wider network that becomes genuinely useful when it’s time to find buyers or co-investors at exit. This person often plays a critical role in translating what the fund is doing locally into a language and structure that global institutional capital understands and trusts.

Working chemistry: harder to assess from outside the room, but worth asking about directly rather than assuming it exists simply because two strong individuals are on the same letterhead. Do the partners have complementary skills, or overlapping ones that create friction over decision rights? How long have they actually worked together, and through what kind of pressure? A talented but dysfunctional partnership is a real, underappreciated risk, regardless of how strong each individual’s credentials look in isolation, and it tends to surface at exactly the wrong moment, during a difficult portfolio decision rather than during a calm fundraising pitch.

Examine the Quality of Their Investment Thesis

How well does the manager actually understand the specific sector and geography they’re proposing to invest in?

A weak thesis sounds like: “We invest in African technology.” Technically true, but it says almost nothing distinctive, and it could be lifted directly from a dozen other pitch decks raising capital in the same cycle.

A strong thesis is specific and grounded in real insight, something like: “We invest in B2B software platforms solving logistics and supply chain problems for the informal retail sector in West Africa.” A manager who can describe that market in granular detail, down to specific customer pain points, existing workarounds customers currently use, and why those workarounds fall short, signals that real homework has been done, not just secondary research pulled together for the fundraise.

A genuinely strong thesis should also evolve as the manager learns. Be cautious of a thesis that hasn’t shifted at all since the manager first raised it, since markets this dynamic should be generating new insight regularly, and a static thesis can sometimes signal a manager who isn’t actually close enough to the ground to notice what’s changing.

Consider What They Offer Beyond Capital

A good manager brings considerably more than money. In markets where talent pipelines and professional networks are still developing relative to more mature ecosystems, this support often determines whether a portfolio company succeeds or quietly stalls out somewhere between an early raise and meaningful scale.

Worth asking directly, and pushing for specific, named examples rather than general assurances:

• How do they actually help portfolio companies recruit senior talent in markets where that talent is genuinely scarce and heavily contested?
• What is their demonstrated process for helping a startup expand successfully into a second or third country, beyond simply encouraging the founder to do so?
• How have they personally used their own network to help a company land an important early enterprise client, strategic partner, or follow-on investor?

If a manager falls back on generic language like “we’re hands-on” without naming a single concrete example tied to an actual portfolio company, that’s worth noting carefully. A manager who is essentially just writing checks without engaging meaningfully beyond that is a real limitation in these markets, not a minor stylistic preference.

Understand Their Path to Exits

A fund’s performance ultimately depends on returning capital, so a manager’s thinking on exits matters enormously, arguably more than almost any other single factor in your evaluation, since strong portfolio companies that never produce liquidity don’t actually help your fund’s returns.

• Do they have a credible, specific sense of who potential acquirers might realistically be: regional telecom or banking players, international companies entering the African market for the first time, or local conglomerates looking to modernise through acquisition?
• Have they previously played any role in helping a company reach a public listing, even a modest one, demonstrating they understand that pathway in practice rather than only in theory?
• How do they think about timing an exit in markets where M&A activity and public listings are still comparatively less frequent than in more mature venture ecosystems?

A manager who speaks with real specificity about exits, naming actual categories of buyers and explaining their reasoning, rather than offering vague optimism about “the market maturing” at some unspecified point, is thinking like a genuine long-term partner, not a visionary chasing growth stories without a clear sense of how those stories convert into actual returns.

What to Prioritise

When evaluating an emerging African fund manager, beyond whatever limited track record exists, focus on:

• Depth of personal financial commitment to the fund
• Balance and working chemistry of the team
• Specificity and originality of the investment thesis
• How genuinely hands-on they are with portfolio companies
• How realistic their plan is for eventually delivering liquid returns

None of these factors alone is conclusive. A manager can score well on team composition and still lack a coherent exit strategy, or have a sharp thesis but limited personal capital at stake. The value of this framework is in looking across all five together, since strength in one area rarely compensates for genuine weakness in another.

The fund managers who build lasting firms on the continent will be the ones who understand their specific markets deeply, are genuinely committed to the long, often unglamorous work of building something over a decade or more, and are, above all, excellent operators rather than passive allocators of capital waiting for the market to do the work for them.