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Fiat Ventures Closes Oversubscribed $35M Fund II Becomes FGV Capital

BusinessNews
Drew Glover, Marcos Fernandez, Alex Harris, and Rohit Ramkumar, FGV Founders. Image Credit: FGV Capital

Drew Glover, Marcos Fernandez, Alex Harris, and Rohit Ramkumar, FGV Founders. Image Credit: FGV Capital

Fiat Ventures has rebranded as FGV Capital and closed an oversubscribed $35 million Fund II, exceeding its original $25 million target.

Fund II’s investors include Reinsurance Group of America, MassMutual, Bank of America, and the Stellar Development Foundation, along with foundations, funds of funds, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals.

The new fund brings FGV’s total assets under management to more than $60 million and unites Fiat Ventures and its associated consultancy, Fiat Growth, under the FGV brand.

The newly structured firm is betting that combining venture capital with hands-on growth support will give founders more than just a check.

Related Post: Black-Led VC Firm Base10 Partners Raises $850M Across Two Funds

Combining Businesses to Help More Founders

General partners Marcos Fernandez and Drew Glover told TechCrunch that they combined the businesses to help founders, whether in the firm’s portfolio or not, with their go-to-market strategies. 

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This move combines Fiat Ventures with the consultancy operation previously known as Fiat Growth. The newly branded FGV Capital will continue focusing on fintech while building closer links between venture investing, growth support, and its industry network.

According to Glover, the connection between the two businesses has already helped the firm secure positions on startup cap tables, with founders seeing potential value in gaining access to the advisory network alongside an investment. 

The two operations, however, will remain separate entities. He emphasized that FGV has established clear processes intended to prevent advisory relationships from influencing investment decisions. “The goal is to use the broader FGV infrastructure to give our investment team better information and deeper context, not influence the outcome,” Glover said.

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The Creation of FGV Capital

Glover, Marcos Fernandez, Alex Harris, and Rohit Ramkumar started the company in 2018 as Fiat Growth, a consultancy that placed seasoned marketing and growth talent inside fintech companies, and three years later introduced the fund as Fiat Ventures. 

Related Post: Collide Capital Closes $95M Fund II for Early-Stage Startups

This order of operations sits at the core of the San Francisco-based fintech investor’s narrative, though the firm makes clear that the consultancy is not mainly used to source deals. “Only a small portion of our investment sourcing comes through the consultancy. Most opportunities come through our broader ecosystem, including our events, media arm, and network of founders and investors,” Fernandez said.

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Instead, the firm points to its operating experience as an advantage, citing five years of pattern recognition across hundreds of growth projects before deploying capital from Fund I.

Since 2018, the team has worked with more than 325 companies in fintech, healthtech, and AI, and has backed over 40 companies through Fund I, Fund II, and co-investment vehicles. The portfolio includes personal loan platform Splitero, AI clinical documentation startup Brellium, insurance data company Trellis, and Sunfish, Possible Finance, and Wagmo. Several of these companies have since raised Series A and Series B rounds from leading investors.

Fund II investors include Reinsurance Group of America, MassMutual, Bank of America, and the Stellar Development Foundation, along with foundations, funds of funds, family offices, and high-net-worth individuals.

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“Our investors and LPs like this because lower-AUM funds drive a higher multiple on invested capital, and at the end of the day, cash-on-cash returns over the fund’s lifecycle,” Fernandez said.

How Fund II Will Be Deployed

Fund II will deploy between $1 million and $1.5 million per company. FGV aims to support at least 25 companies through the fund over two years. The firm has already completed 13 investments, which means it has passed the halfway mark of its minimum portfolio goal.

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FGV Capital’s $35 million Fund II will focus on companies operating at the intersection of fintech and sectors including artificial intelligence, healthcare, and commerce.

By combining venture investing with advisory services, the platform offers a model in which capital is just one part of its work with founders. The firm highlights its growth expertise, industry relationships, and limited partner network as extra resources portfolio companies can tap into.

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For Fernandez, the aim is to build an ecosystem where those connections strengthen each other. “The goal is to build an ecosystem where capital, distribution, and relationships compound and where founders and investors have more ways to win together,” he said.

Main Image: Drew Glover, Marcos Fernandez, Alex Harris, and Rohit Ramkumar, FGV Founders. Image Credit: FGV Capital

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Stephen Oluwadara
Stephen Oluwadara
Stephen Oluwadara is a general news reporter for UrbanGeekz covering stories across the US and Africa.
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