Since President Bola Tinubu’s state visit to Paris in late 2024, Nigeria and France have backed a growing list of initiatives spanning venture capital, agribusiness, clean energy, and the creative economy – underpinned by French development finance institutions like Proparco, platforms such as Business France’s Ambition Africa and the Spotlight Nigeria Business Forum, and the Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, co-hosted by Kenyan President William Ruto and French President Emmanuel Macron in May 2026.
That summit saw strong participation from leading Nigerian business leaders like Aliko Dangote, Abdulsamad Rabiu, and Tony Elumelu. A new French state visit to Nigeria, recently hinted at by the French ambassador, and scheduled for later this year, has kept the momentum growing.
Building on the legacy of the older generation of industrialists and moguls, is a cohort of young Nigerian entrepreneurs and investors doing important on-the-ground work – raising French capital, opening market access for Nigerian farmers, setting up industrial footholds, and putting Nigerian creativity in front of French corporate giants. Meet five of them.
1. Kola Aina – Founding Partner, Ventures Platform
Kola Aina founded Ventures Platform, one of Africa’s most active early-stage venture capital firms, and has become one of the continent’s most recognisable tech investors. In 2025, Ventures Platform announced a $64 million first close for its Pan-African Fund II – a raise that drew support from Proparco, the private-sector financing arm of French development agency AFD, alongside the Nigerian Government, International Finance Corporation, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), and others.