Invest In The Future

When discussing corporate governance in Africa, one crucial concern is whether to get serious about it at the early stages of a startup or later on while the company is in functional mode. It is common to invest more in it at the growth stage since, at the early stage, the founders desire the liberty of innovating and experimenting without any hindrance from traditional rules.

Many experts have tried to infer that a balance needs to be struck. Many other experienced professionals believe that the actual role of corporate governance begins when the startup is far ahead from the idea stage and has entered into a more accountable phase.

In this episode, Future Africa's CFO, Mayowa Olugbile, unpack these expert perspectives with Ory Okolloh (Partner, Verod-Kepple Africa Venture) and Patrice Raymond Backer (Partner / Chief Investment Officer, AFIG Funds). 

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa where we learn from interesting people doing important work globally.

In this episode, Wura Kayode talks to Biola Alabi - Co-founder & General Partner at Atika Venture Capital

Biola Alabi is the Co-founder & General Partner at Atika Venture Capital, a women-led venture fund providing early-stage capital in Africa. She is also an award-winning executive producer, and founder of Biola Alabi Media – a pan-African media and technology advisory firm that has worked extensively with local and global companies, governments, and development agencies in the Telcom, Media, and Technology (TMT) space. 

As an active angel investor and advisor to African technology and media companies, Biola has been involved in myriad start-ups. True to her reputation as a leader in the community, and fuelled by her passion to support up-and-coming talent, Biola is also the founder of Grooming for Greatness (G4G), a fellowship and mentorship program aimed at cultivating leadership skills in young, aspiring professionals and entrepreneurs.

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific founders & investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies.

In this episode, our Research Associate, Chukwuyemisi Isichei, talks to Tijan Watt - Co-founder and Managing Partner of Wuri Ventures. 

Tijan has enjoyed a 20-year career as both an operating entrepreneur, creating dynamic companies in Senegal and in the US, and an investor, working in investment banking at Goldman Sachs and Private Equity at Nigerian firm Travant Capital Partners. Tijan graduated summa cum laude and phi beta kappa from Howard University in Mathematics / Computer Science and holds an MBA from Harvard University.

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific founders & investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies.

In this episode, our Principal, Peter Kisadha, talks to Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future.

Mallaby is a Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) about his recently published book, The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future, and the important lessons African VCs can learn from it.

He is an experienced journalist and public speaker; Mallaby contributes to a variety of publications, including Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, and the Financial Times, where he spent two years as a contributing editor. He is the author of five books, most recently The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future.

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific founders & investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies.

In this episode, we speak to two amazing women in Venture Capital - Sabrine Chahrour, Investment Associate at Partech Africa Fund, and Ife Ojobanikan, Principal Investment Officer at Berrywood Capital - on how they started their careers in Venture Capital, their thesis in accessing great startups to invest in, and how they are eliminating the bias when assessing founders.

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific founders & investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies.

In this episode, our General Partner Iyinoluwa Aboyeji talks to Saul Klein.

Saul Klein is a serial entrepreneur, operator and investor with over 25 years of experience building and exiting companies in the US, Israel and Europe.  He has a passion for working with seed and early-stage businesses and the positive impact that technology can make on society.

Saul is a Founding Partner at LocalGlobe and Latitude Ventures. Previously, Saul was a General Partner at Index Ventures from 2007 until May 2015. In 2012 David Cameron appointed Saul to be the UK's first Technology Business Ambassador to Israel and in 2016 he was awarded an OBE for services to Business. For almost five years, Saul has been a trustee of Comic Relief.

In this episode, our General Partner Iyinoluwa Aboyeji talks to Michael Eisenberg, General Partner at Aleph, and our Venture Partner, Caleb Zipperstein about what the African tech ecosystem can learn from the Start-Up Nation (Israel Tech Ecosystem)

Aleph is an early-stage venture capital fund with $850M under management. Aleph partners with great Israeli entrepreneurs to build large, meaningful companies and impactful global brands. Since its founding in 2013, Aleph has invested in over 50 companies (not all announced), including Lemonade (NYSE: LMND), Frank (acquired JPM), Melio, Healthy.io, JoyTunes, Fabric, Honeybook and Bringg.

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific founders & investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies.

In this episode of Invest in the Future, our co-founder and Growth Partner, Olabinjo Adeniran talks to Idris Ayodeji Bello - Founding Partner, LoftyInc Capital Management and Founder, Wennovation Hub.

Loftyinc is an early investor in 2 of Africa's 5 unicorns - Andela & Flutterwave and backs startups across Sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region. We talk to Idris about starting out his career in the Oil and Gas industry and pioneering technology entrepreneurship in Nigeria.

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific founders & investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies.

In this episode of Invest in the Future, our principal Adenike Sheriff talks to Surabhi(Ruby) Nimkar - Principal at Greenhouse Capital, a Nigeria-based early-stage investor focused on Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA regions.

Ruby is primarily focused on Fintech and Enterprise Software and is actively involved in GHC’s investment decisioning, having backed market champions such as Flutterwave, Helium Health, Migo, NowMoney, Indicina and several others.

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific angel investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies. 

In this episode of Invest In The Future, our co-founder Olabinjo Adeniran talks to Maya Horgan-Famodu the Founder & MD of Ingressive Capital - a $10 Million Fund 1 and $50 Million Fund 2 for early-stage African startups. 

Maya shares her story of trying to raise a fund in 2014 and being unable to do so but going ahead to set up Ingressive Advisory to help venture funds find and back African startups. Some money from the advisory business was used to invest in companies like Paystack and Tizeti. By 2016, Ingressive Capital was born and began to invest in more startups. Maya shares Ingressive's philosophy for the African tech startup scene as well as what they consider red flags when founders pitch them.

Invest In The Future is a live fireside chat series by Future Africa to learn from prolific angel investors who have invested in and built some of the world's most impactful technology companies. 

In this episode of Invest In The Future, our founder Iyin Aboyeji chats with Michael Seibel - Group Partner at Y Combinator - the world's largest technology accelerator, Managing Director of YC Early Stage and co-founder of Justin.tv/Twitch and SocialCam.

Michael shares his philosophy for investing in startups as an angel as well as YC's philosophy - enabling founders to build companies they would like to build. He also talks about investing in emerging markets like Africa and why founders in emerging markets have a lot to learn from each other than from the US. There's a lot to unpack in this episode about opportunities to build startups and ideas founders should chase. 

In this episode, we speak with Yele Bademosi - founder of social cryptocurrency app Bundle Africa & founding partner of early-stage Africa-focused VC firm, Microtraction. Yele discusses his journey from medicine to technology - learning design, code, marketing and eventually venture capital. We also discuss the opportunity for crypto to transform Africa and how Yele measures startups to invest in at Microtraction. Speaking with Yele is Olabinjo Adeniran, Co-founder and Growth Partner at Futrue Africa.

In this episode, we host Odunayo Eweniyi. Odun is the co-founder and COO of Piggyvest - the largest savings and investments app in Nigeria. She's also the founder of FirstCheck Africa - an early-stage venture fund signing up to $25,000 for women founders in Africa. Odun is interviewed by Adenike Sheriff the co-founder and Principal of Future Africa.

In the first episode, we host Sahil Lavingia. Sahil is the founder and CEO of Gumroad. He also runs a successful $7 million a year early-stage fund. The fund typically writes $100,000 to $250,000 cheques and has invested in HelloSign, Movable Ink, Lambda School, Figma, Clubhouse, and Haus. Sahil is interviewed by Iyin 'E' Aboyeji, the founder of Future Africa and co-founder Andela and Flutterwave.