Novastar Ventures is a Nairobi-based venture capital firm founded in 2014 by Steve Beck and Michael Gassner, investing in early-stage companies across East Africa that combine commercial viability with measurable social impact. The firm manages over $100 million across two funds and has become one of the most active and influential VC investors in Silicon Savannah, backing companies including BRCK, Copia Global, and several other startups operating at the intersection of technology and development.
Beck and Gassner came from backgrounds in impact investing and development finance, and they designed Novastar around a thesis that the best investment opportunities in East Africa were companies solving fundamental access problems - access to energy, healthcare, education, financial services, and consumer goods - for the hundreds of millions of people at the base of the economic pyramid. This was not philanthropy dressed as investment: Novastar expected venture-scale returns from companies that could achieve profitability while serving low-income customers.
The firm's Fund I deployed approximately $30 million into early-stage companies, while Fund II raised over $80 million from institutional investors including development finance institutions (CDC Group, now BII; FMO; Finnfund), foundations, and family offices. The larger second fund reflected growing institutional confidence in East African venture capital and in Novastar's investment approach specifically.
Novastar's portfolio spanned several of the sectors defining East African technology: off-grid energy (BRCK's Moja WiFi platform), last-mile distribution (Copia Global), healthcare, and financial services. The firm took board seats, provided hands-on operational support, and worked closely with portfolio companies on strategy, hiring, and fundraising - a more involved approach than some international investors who wrote cheques from London or San Francisco and monitored from a distance.
The firm's experience also illustrated the challenges of venture capital in frontier markets. Some portfolio companies - most notably Copia Global, which shut down in 2024 - failed despite significant investment and Novastar's active involvement. The exits available in East African markets remained limited: IPOs on the Nairobi Securities Exchange were rare for tech companies, and strategic acquisitions by international firms were infrequent. These exit constraints meant that even successful investments could take longer to return capital than the typical VC fund lifecycle assumed.
Novastar's significance in the Kenyan ecosystem extends beyond capital deployment. The firm helped professionalise venture investing in East Africa, establishing governance standards, ESG reporting frameworks, and impact measurement methodologies that influenced how other investors operated in the region. For founders, a Novastar investment carried a signal of credibility - indicating that the company had survived rigorous due diligence from a firm with deep local knowledge and high standards.
See Also
Sources
- Novastar Ventures. "Impact Report: Fund I Portfolio." Nairobi, 2020.
- Bright, Jake. "Novastar Ventures Raises $80M Fund II for East African Startups." TechCrunch, 2020.
- Beck, Steve. "Investing at the Frontier: Lessons from East African Venture Capital." Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2019.
- Jackson, Tom. "Novastar Ventures and the Rise of Impact VC in East Africa." Disrupt Africa, 2018.