Katapult Africa opens fresh accelerator call for climate-tech startups tackling food systems

Katapult Africa has reopened its accelerator programme to early-stage climate-tech ventures, marking at least the third such call the impact investor has run on the continent since the start of the year. The latest cohort narrows its focus to agritech, climate-smart agriculture, and resilient food systems, a tighter mandate than earlier rounds that also considered clean energy, mobility, and carbon markets.

What the programme offers

Selected startups will spend three months in an intensive support structure built around workshops, mentorship sessions, and direct access to investors and industry specialists. Katapult Africa has described the goal as helping founders hit three markers at once: business growth, investor readiness, and the ability to measure and report their environmental or social impact.

Beyond mentorship, participating companies stand to receive between $150,000 and $500,000 in equity investment, positioning the programme as a hybrid of accelerator and early-stage fund rather than a purely advisory initiative.

Who can apply

Katapult Africa is targeting impact-driven, early-stage companies operating anywhere on the continent, provided they are led by experienced founding teams and can show a credible route to commercialisation or existing revenue. Pan-African reach is also part of the screening criteria, suggesting the fund is looking for business models that can travel across borders rather than remain confined to a single market.

For Nigerian founders, the call adds to a widening set of climate and agritech funding options that have opened up in 2026, at a time when the country’s agricultural sector continues to face pressure from erratic rainfall, post-harvest losses, and rising input costs. A pan-African accelerator with equity capital attached gives local startups working on food resilience another route to institutional backing beyond domestic venture funds.

Where this fits in the broader ecosystem

The programme sits under Katapult VC, a global impact investor whose portfolio spans more than 170 companies, including several that have reached unicorn status. Its African arm has been steadily building out programming this year, having run at least one prior cohort call in February focused on a broader mix of clean energy, circular economy, and carbon-market startups. The shift toward agritech and food systems in this latest round suggests the firm is calibrating its Africa strategy toward sectors it may see as closer to commercial traction or where deal flow has been strongest.

That narrowing also mirrors a wider trend among climate-focused investors on the continent, several of which have moved to sharpen sector focus rather than fund broadly across the climate-tech spectrum. Southern Africa’s Holocene, for instance, recently closed a dedicated climate-tech fund, while Tunisia’s RoboCare secured backing to scale precision agriculture tools across Africa and the Middle East — both signs that capital is concentrating around specific, provable use cases rather than the category as a whole.

Whether Katapult Africa’s equity-linked model proves more durable than pure grant or mentorship accelerators will likely depend on how many of its portfolio companies go on to raise follow-on funding, a metric the firm has not yet published for its African cohorts.

Applications for the current round are open through Katapult Africa’s official portal.