Industries · Private equity & VC

Private Equity & Venture Capital

Entry timing signals that identify optimal windows, and exit intelligence that prices the door before you underwrite the deal.

1–6mo: entry windows, with confidence
27/54: markets with no working exit route
68%: of 2025 exit liquidity now domestic

African private equity holds for 6.4 years on average and returns 0.13 exits per new investment. Neither number is a verdict on the asset class — but both are arithmetic that belongs in the underwriting model rather than the risk section of the IC paper.

The problem

What makes this hard

The exit is assumed, not priced
27 of 54 markets score critical on exit liquidity: no working route at any price. Entry there is a hold-to-maturity decision.
Timing is left to judgement
Deployment schedules are set by fund mechanics, not by market conditions, and the cost of a mistimed entry is rarely attributed.
Currency is carried naked
17% of African PE managers hedge with financial instruments. 94% of the rest cite cost.

With Kilwa

What changes

Entry windows with a date range
METI forecasts 1–6 month windows with an explicit OPTIMAL, WATCH or AVOID posture and a confidence indicator.
Exit liquidity scored before you commit
The Exit Liquidity Score maps which of the 54 markets have one working door, two, or none.
The sponsor-to-sponsor wave, tracked
A record 26% of 2025 exits were sponsor-to-sponsor. We score where that pool reaches next.

Services for this mandate

How we work with private equity & vc.

All services

Capital allocation & deals

Capital Allocation, Deal & Portfolio Intelligence

Which markets fit the mandate, when to move, and what the exit is worth before you underwrite it.

Market entry & growth

Market Entry & Growth Strategy

Which market fits your strategy, in what sequence, and when the entry window becomes attractive.

Research for this mandate

All insights

Kilwa Atlas

Kilwa Atlas No. 6: Five Gates — Private Credit in Africa

Capital for African private credit tripled in five years, and more than half of the money raised between 2021 and 2024 was still waiting to be lent. This Atlas explains why with one idea: a private loan has to pass five gates before the lender is repaid, and in most markets at least one is shut. The Private Credit Conditions Index scores each gate from 0 to 100 in twenty markets, a screen puts all 54 into four lanes on court speed and the proceeds gate, and five enforcement precedents show what lenders actually got back and how long it took.

Liquidity Signal

Exit and Liquidity 2026

African private equity recorded 81 exits in 2025, the second-highest count on record, and 27% of limited partners still told AVCA they would slow commitments in 2026. Both facts are true, because an exit count is not a distribution. This edition scores the four things that stand between a signed African sale and money in an investor's account: who the buyer is, whether a listing is a real alternative, whether another sponsor will take the position, and whether the proceeds can leave the country.

Capital Risk

The Missing Market

Whether the exposure can be covered, at what cost, for how long, and where no cover exists at any price.

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Built for private equity & vc.

A working session on the markets you follow, with the decomposition behind every score.

Scope an engagement Explore the platform