Keypoints:
- Mining veterans seek $1bn for Africa
- Fundraising remains at an early stage
- Critical minerals race drives investor interest
FORMER Gold Fields chief executive Chris Griffith has joined Ghanaian mining veteran Sam Jonah and former Goldman Sachs banker Colin Coleman in a private equity venture seeking to raise $1bn for investments in Africa’s critical minerals sector.
Griffith disclosed the plan in an Investec Minds interview published on September 22, saying the team was still in the early stages of raising capital. The venture brings together deep mining, investment banking and African dealmaking experience at a time when global competition for copper, lithium, cobalt, graphite and other strategic minerals is intensifying.
$1bn fundraising drive takes shape
‘I’m part of a private equity team now, seeking to raise a billion dollars to invest in African critical minerals,’ Griffith told Investec’s Nkateko Mathonsi.
He said the group was working to establish the private equity business and included Coleman, Jonah and other colleagues in Ghana and South Africa.
No fund name, first-close date, investor list, target countries or specific mineral projects were disclosed in the interview. That makes the $1bn figure a fundraising ambition rather than committed capital.
The distinction matters because critical-minerals projects can require long lead times, heavy infrastructure spending and significant political and commodity-price risk before reaching production.
Mining and finance experience combine
Griffith brings more than three decades of mining experience across iron ore, platinum, gold and base metals. He previously led Kumba Iron Ore, Anglo American Platinum and Gold Fields, and most recently headed Vedanta’s base-metals business.
Jonah adds one of Africa’s most established mining track records. He became chief executive of Ashanti Goldfields in 1986 and later founded Jonah Capital, an investment business active in mineral resources and other sectors across the continent.
Coleman, meanwhile, spent years at Goldman Sachs, including leading its operations in Sub-Saharan Africa, giving the emerging team capital-markets and institutional-investor expertise alongside operational mining experience.
The combination is significant as African countries try to draw larger pools of private capital into mining while retaining more value from their mineral wealth — a shift examined in Africa Briefing’s analysis of Africa’s growing leverage in the global critical-minerals race.
Africa’s minerals race accelerates
The fundraising drive comes as critical minerals move higher on global economic, energy and national-security agendas.
The International Energy Agency’s 2026 Global Critical Minerals Outlook warns that mineral supply chains remain heavily concentrated, particularly in refining.
The IEA said the leading refining countries accounted for more than three-quarters of growth in refined supply over the previous two years, while investment in critical minerals fell 9 percent in 2025 amid geopolitical tensions and price volatility.
That concentration is encouraging governments and investors to search for more diversified sources of copper, lithium, cobalt, graphite, rare earths and other materials used in energy systems, electronics, defence and advanced manufacturing.
Africa is increasingly central to that search.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is a dominant global cobalt producer and major copper supplier, while neighbouring Zambia remains one of Africa’s most important copper producers. Elsewhere, countries across southern and eastern Africa are developing graphite, lithium, rare earth and other strategic-mineral projects.
Africa Briefing has documented how Mozambique is tightening control over critical minerals, while Malawi is betting on a growing pipeline of strategic mineral projects.
Value addition becomes the bigger test
For African governments, however, attracting mining capital is only part of the equation.
At a July 2026 ministerial forum in Abidjan, the African Development Bank and African governments argued that the continent must move beyond simply exporting raw minerals and develop processing capacity, regional value chains and mineral-based industries.
That policy direction is increasingly visible across the continent.
Mozambique has moved to limit exports of unprocessed minerals, while Kenya and the United States have been discussing a critical-minerals framework placing greater emphasis on local processing.
Transport infrastructure is becoming equally important. Copper from the DRC is already reaching international markets through the Atlantic route, with Africa Briefing reporting on movement of Congolese copper through the Lobito Corridor.
For any new private equity fund, investment decisions may therefore increasingly be shaped not only by geology and commodity prices, but also by government requirements around beneficiation, local participation, infrastructure and employment.
What happens next
The immediate question is whether Griffith, Jonah and Coleman can translate their combined mining and capital-markets experience into a first close large enough to establish the venture as a significant new source of African mining finance.
Much will depend on its eventual mandate.
Investors will want to know whether the fund intends to back producing mines, development-stage projects, processing facilities or early exploration — and whether it will concentrate on particular commodities and jurisdictions or build a continent-wide portfolio.
Griffith’s comments suggest those details are still being worked through.
What is already clear is that the proposed $1bn raise comes at a moment when Africa’s critical minerals are attracting heightened strategic and commercial attention.
If the fundraising succeeds, the venture would add another sizeable pool of private capital to the competition for African mineral assets — with its eventual choice between extraction, processing and value-added projects likely to determine how significant its impact becomes.
