Stears, a financial data provider, and venture capital firm Ventures Platform, have launched the Stears-VP Liquidity Index (SVL Index), a new benchmark designed to track liquidity and exit activity across African private markets.
- •The index, unveiled at the third edition of the Africa Prosperity Summit, aims to fill a long-standing data gap that has limited transparency for investors on the continent.
- •The SVL Index draws on a decade of data from exits and liquidity events across African venture capital including confidential submissions from general partners (GPs), with Stears serving as the sole data custodian.
- •The index provides quarterly and annual indicators of liquidity health, as well as sectoral and regional breakdowns, offering investors a clearer picture of market dynamics and exit timing.
“Stears and the leading African GPs share a commitment to trusted, standardised infrastructure that makes credible data available to LPs and GPs investing in Africa. Launching the SVL Index is an important milestone because it creates a single way to track African GP performance, access previously undisclosed data, and tell a more accurate story of how African VC has grown over the years,” said Preston Ideh, CEO at Stears.
Preliminary readings indicate a strengthening in African private-market liquidity. The index rose to 130.28 in the third quarter of 2025, up from 113.27 at the end of 2024. Venture liquidity specifically rebounded to 116.34 in 2025, recovering from a low of 96.42 during the global tech funding downturn in 2022–2023.
The SVL Index is publicly accessible and updated throughout the year. For investors, it provides a transparent benchmark for portfolio planning, asset allocation, and exit strategy. Limited partners can use it to evaluate fund manager performance and liquidity depth, while general partners can monitor where and when exits are gaining traction.
“By bringing ten years of exit data into a single, transparent benchmark, the SVL Index enables GPs and LPs to plan with confidence, model liquidity more accurately, and ultimately build repeatable pathways to strong returns. We are proud to partner with Stears on an innovation that we expect will redefine how capital allocators understand and engage Africa’s private markets,” said Dotun Olowoporoku, Managing Partner at Ventures Platform.
Stears, backed by global investors including MaC Venture Capital, Serena Ventures, Cascador, and Omidyar’s Luminate, has raised US$4 million since 2020. Ventures Platform focuses on seed-stage investments across Africa, with portfolio companies including Moniepoint, Paystack, PiggyVest, ThriveAgric, and SunFi.
