Top 10 Food and Beverage VC (Venture Capital) Funds in South Africa in May 2026

Portfolio highlights

• Novel Farms — Novel Farms uses microbial fermentation to develop cruelty-free, inexpensive and tunable bioscaffolds for the production of cell-based meat products. Novel Farms mission is to craft the taste and texture of the gourmet meats and transform cell-based meat consumption into a sought-after culinary experience for the next generation of consciouseaters.
• Minus — A sustainable coffee alternative, combining the taste, look, and smell of coffee with a smaller footprint to ensure a brighter future for coffee and the planet.
• Unicorn Biotechnologies — Unicorn Biotechnologies is developing a fully automated manufacturing platform to enable cellular agriculture producers to seamlessly scale products from the lab bench to supermarket shelves. Our full stack platform combines hardware, software and analytics to completely automate cellular agriculture manufacturing, reducing costs and increasingproduct quality. By providing a clear path to scale cellular agriculture from grams to tons, we will improve human and planetary health and drive the transition to animal free agriculture.

Portfolio highlights

• VPBank — As one of the earliest-established Joint-stock Commercial banks in Vietnam, VPBank has achieved steady development throughout its history. Especially since 2010, VPBank has grown dramatically with the development and implementation of the strategic transformation program diligently with support from one of the world’s leading consulting companies.
• Space Tech Innovation Co. — Space Tech Innovation Co. operates as a space technology company.
• Fosun Tourism Group (FOLIDAY) — Fosun Tourism Group provides a one-price, all-inclusive leisure and vacation experience. Their tourist destinations include one-stop entertainment and comprehensive tourism and vacation destinations operated by a company that provides resort operations, tourism destination development, and other related services.

Portfolio highlights

• POW! Foods — Puta en gandia
• Veggie Victory — VeggieVictory is Nigeria’s first plant-based food tech company bringing people a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle through plant-based meats and meals.
• High Time Foods — High Time Foods provides shelf-stable and moldable plant-based meat alternatives to foodservice operators. Their first product is a plant-based chicken alternative that does not require refrigeration. The product is moldable and can be used in any cuisine as a substitute for chicken.

Portfolio highlights

• 3X4Genetics — Scientifically-robust nutrigenomics (personalised nutrition guided by your own genetic stack). Practitioner education & genomic reporting
• Lipidio Pharmaceuticals — A Unique Approach to Treating Obesity Precision Targeting of the Skin Exploiting the skin as an endocrine organ Historically regarded as a protective barrier organ, the skin is now recognized as an active endocrine organ capable of synthesizing, and secreting diverse hormones and signaling
• SEngine Precision Medicine — The Search Engine For Identifying Personalized Cancer Treatments.

Portfolio highlights

• Opalia — Opalia is introducing a new era of dairy: functional, delicious, and sustainable dairy made from mammary cells.
• The Pack — Nutritionally complete vegan dog food. Grain-free & developed with food scientists & animal nutritionists, try our delicious vegan dog food now.
• Cultimate Foods — At Cultimate, we are transforming the flavor and aroma industry with natural innovative ingredients.

Portfolio highlights

• Livestock Wealth — Livestock Wealth is a crowdfarmingTM company that allows people to invest in livestock and earn from sale of the offspring.Their unique CrowdFarmingTM concept allows individuals to share the facilities of a commercial livestock farm while our experts look after their cows on a day to day basis.Cows have been a source of pride and a store ofwealth in Africa for centuries. The wealth in cows is based on something real – beef. The company enables anyone to be an organic beef farmer.

Portfolio highlights

• NjiaPay — Payments-as-a-Service platform that will streamline your operations and elevate your online payments across the African continent.
• Talk360 — Talk360 is an easy-to-use calling app that helps people make affordable international calls to any mobile and landline number. They believe that reliable communication and digital services must be affordable and accessible to everyone, regardless of someone's background. Especially people in emerging countries in Africa, who often need theseservices the most, do not always have the necessary banking possibilities. To bridge this distance, Talk360 will launch the world's first single checkout platform for Africa. This platform will combine all locally available payment methods and currencies across Africa, together with over 1.25 million cash points of sales, and will eventually be available to other companies as well. This means that 500 million Africans will be able to purchase digital services they never had access to before.
• Right Now Response — The future of repairs starts soon. Counting down to smarter tracking in 2025! There are perks to working 24/7, 365 days a year... Like launching the future of repairs ahead of schedule!

Portfolio highlights

• Enmovil — Enmovil delivers a Business Intelligence Platform driven by a connected asset ecosystem that enables organizations to maximise their operational efficiency. Enmovil's platform, which is a combination of front-end software running analytical and machine learning algorithms, combined with its indigenous hardware "satellites"​ deployedin the field, deliver the intelligence to the management that enables them to understand the utilisation model of their resources.
• Lana — Lana offers a fintech platform designed to help companies secure funding for projects that reduce carbon emissions. It connects businesses with financial capital to support decarbonization efforts through loan underwriting and capital structuring. The platform supports both small and large enterprises by simplifying the process of financingsustainable energy initiatives. It also helps reduce the time and cost associated with corporate decarbonization.
• Hoofprint Biome — Hoofprint Biome, developing probiotics for to increase feed digestibility and decreasing methane in cattle

Portfolio highlights

• Rentoza — We champion giving you access, affordability and flexibility to explore tech on your own terms
• Kusini Water — Kusini Water builds water treatment systems from nanotechnology and macadamia nut shells.
• Trade Shield — Trade Shield's aim is to increase access to trade credit facilities for those companies that most need them and will benefit the most from them.

Portfolio highlights

• The Index — The Index is a platform of cutting-edge technology used by clients in the fashion and retail industry to grow their companies and enhance their digital footprints
• De Novo Foodlabs — Producing non-animal dairy proteins using precision fermentation
• Smart Separations — Smart Separations is a limited company based in London UK that has patented an innovative microfiltration technology to produce ceramic filters with self-assembled controllable pores of uniform size in the range between <1 and 50µm. This tight pore size control and range availability will revolutionise the field of MF with a cost-effectiveproduct.It aims to be the world’s leader in MF and particle separations technology – filling the void gap that exists in the market nowadays.