Founded by serial entrepreneurs Vinny Lingham and Llew Claasen, Newtown Partners has been at the forefront of technology investing for over a decade. We don’t just write checks—we roll up our sleeves alongside founders tackling the world’s biggest challenges through breakthrough technology. Cape Town-based with international offices in San Diego and Rotterdam, we bridge global ambition with impact at scale.
Our sweet spot? The critical intersection where cutting-edge innovation meets massive market opportunity, particularly in frontier economies where traditional capital falls short.
What makes us different? We’ve been in your shoes. Our team has founded, scaled, and successfully exited technology companies at every stage, which means we offer more than capital—we provide the hard-won insights that only come from doing it yourself.
Today? We’re leveraging this experience across multiple investment strategies, from early-stage venture capital to private credit growth finance, ensuring we can support exceptional founders at whatever stage they need us most.
Why we exist
We abhor the status quo
We provide
honest, impartial advice grounded in real world experience.
We drive
sustainable value and growth in a fundamentally positive way.
We are future and trend focussed
and think beyond the boundaries of today’s business world.
Invest where growth meets impact
The Newtown Impact Credit Fund is actively raising capital to back Africa’s most promising Series B+ technology companies. We support proven businesses with strong revenue and scale potential, using structured capital to deliver attractive, risk-adjusted returns and measurable impact.
Meet our partners
Latest Insights
Credit, but make it Venture (How we’re rethinking debt in Africa)
Credit has always been the sensible sibling of venture: steady, rule-bound SME-lending firmly rooted in the physical economy. For most of Africa’s financial history, it’s meant factories, fleets, real estate, and assets you can [...]
The shape of capital: Why we back business models, not sectors
As Africa’s technology markets mature, the most interesting opportunities aren’t defined by new industries, but by better business models — the ones that turn liquidity into leverage and make capital productive. African investing is [...]
Why Newtown Partners is betting on credit (and why that might surprise you)
At Newtown Partners, we’ve built a reputation for leaning into the uncomfortable edges of venture capital: investing in the overlooked markets, the founders with unpolished accents, and the industries the “smart money” dismissed…right up [...]