The Trajectory: Africa

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Welcome to The Trajectory Africa: Rewind, the summary episode for the Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa.

Over the course of 11 episodes, the series explored: the key characteristics of African markets; the opportunities presented by digital commerce, SME financing and fintech, and how they power the broader venture opportunity; what drives fund performance in terms of economics and structure; how funds raise money, and how LPs make investment decisions.

The Rewind features key insights from the series, distilling them into six “principles” (or principles in training) that help explain the emerging logic behind VC opportunities in Africa.

In this episode, we break down these principles:

Now is the time for Africans to solve their own problems and build their own future.
The future of African venture opportunities is digitizing African economies.
African consumers may have limited purchasing power, but it’s possible to increase and enable consumption.
Fintech is an important enabler for digitizing African economies because it provides foundational infrastructure.
SMEs power tech startups by buying from them, and funding and supplying SMEs is a VC-scale opportunity.
Africa-focused funds (as do most VCs), have an uphill battle to develop working business models.

It also presents some thoughtful observations about the challenges faced by African (women) GPs as they raise funds, and what impact the impending global slowdown will have on African VC opportunities.

Featured Resources and Recommended Track:

Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/
Way Less Sad. AJR
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlVhUbGa2pg

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 11 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. This episode’s guest artist is Babacar Seck. Babacar is an investor passionate about projects that drive inclusive development, from education to healthcare and financial services. As a senior investment professional at Proparco, he focuses on designing and deploying a €200M venture capital program to fund and support African entrepreneurs while also managing a global investment portfolio of banks, insurance, and fintech.

Prior to Proparco, Babacar led key areas of strategy and development for AXA, a €1 trillion insurance firm, working under the Chairman and CEO. In his spare time, Babacar supports Africa-focused initiatives, as the Chair of the Sciences Po Alumni Africa Division, and as a member of Africultures and the Association of African Actuaries, respectively.

In this episode, the final one of the series, we discuss:

How Babacar started his career in venture capital and private equity
Proparco’s distinct characteristics as an LP and how it evaluates GPs
How DFIs’ ESG standards have benefitted African VC
Common mistakes that GPs make while fundraising and how the process works against them
Why African, women, and first-time GPs struggle to raise money
What drives (African) fund underperformance and how LPs can help
What micro and macro factors will drive adjustments in the African VC space

Babacar’s Recommendations & Featured Resources:

Proparco
https://www.proparco.fr/en
Spiritual. Burna Boy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Coj0yQaItes
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 10 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. This episode’s guest artist is Danai Musandu. Danai is a Senior Investor Relations Associate at HPE Growth, where she leads and supports the public and investor relations function, with a focus on fundraising and strategic communication.

Prior to HPE, Danai was an Investment and Investor Relations Associate at Goodwell Investments, an early-stage technology private equity firm focused on emerging markets and impact investing. Danai is an advisory board member of Private Equity International and the Africa Trust Group, and holds a BCom. in politics, philosophy and economics, as well as a postgraduate honors degree in Economics from the University of Cape Town.

In this episode, we discuss:

How Danai launched her career in venture capital
Why she pivoted from investing to investor relations
The fundraising process in investor relations (IR), and how it differs by LP type
What LPs look for when they evaluate funds
The do’s and don’ts of raising money
Why deep listening and cultural multi-linguality are super powers for IR professionals

Danai’s Recommendations & Featured Resources:

HPE Growth
https://hpegrowth.com/
“It Is Not the Critic Who Counts”. Thomas Roosevelt
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7-it-is-not-the-critic-who-counts-not-the-man
Summer YoMuthi. Black Diamond
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AagjAUE8U8s&ab_channel=AmbitiouzEntertainment
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 9 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. This episode’s guest artist is Adenike Sheriff. Adenike is the Co-founder of Future Africa, a fund manager that invests early in mission driven founders solving hard problems for large markets. Prior to Future Africa, Adenike focused on content strategy and storytelling for technology companies in Africa and beyond. Her work has appeared in various international publications including the Huffington Post.

In this episode, we discuss:

How Adenike plotted an “unlikely” path into VC
How Future Africa came to be and why Adenike’s “blank slate” thinking inspired the birth of Future Africa Collective
Why market-creating innovations constitute a significant investment opportunity
What thorny challenges can emerge while you’re innovating
What opportunities lie ahead for Future Africa

Note: This conversation was recorded in September 2021.

Adenike’s Recommendations & Featured Resources:

Future Africa
https://future.africa/
Future Africa podcast
https://future.africa/blog/category/podcast/
Christiansen, C., Ojomo, E., & Dillon, K. (2018). The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovations Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty.
https://www.christenseninstitute.org/books/the-prosperity-paradox-how-innovation-can-lift-nations-out-of-poverty/
Chimanada Ngozi Ndichie
https://www.chimamanda.com/
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 8 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. This episode’s guest artist is Eghosa Omoigui. Eghosa is the founder and Managing General Partner of EchoVC Partners, a seed and early-stage technology venture capital firm investing in underrepresented founders and underserved emerging markets. Prior to Echo, Eghosa worked for Intel, and in his last role served as the Director of Consumer Internet & Semantic Technologies for Intel Capital. A Kauffman Fellowship mentor, Eghosa is also engaged with organizations that support women founders and angel investors such as Astia, where he’s on the Venture Advisory Board, and Rising Tide Africa, where he’s a Board member. He attended law school at the University of Nigeria and University of Pennsylvania and business school at Babson College.

CORRECTION: In the intro to this episode, I erroneously referred to Eghosa as a Kauffman Fellow. He is a mentor for theKauffman Fellowship. Also, EchoVC is always EchoVC, not Echo.

NOTE: If you're struggling with the mental math featured in this episode, please see the FAQ with Eghosa at the bottom of the show notes. It should help to clarify the underlying logic.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why EchoVC aspires to be the Sequoia Capital of emerging markets
Why consumer market opportunities are tough to crack
What it actually takes to return a $50M fund (Spoiler alert: It’s harder than you think.)
Why valuation and ownership impact fund outcomes so significantly
Why investing in women (among other things) is a key element of portfolio construction
A mini case study on hypothetical fintech company Moolah Mountain to explore how investing decisions impact fund economics

Eghosa’s Recommended Track & Featured Resources:

Waiting to Exhale (Original Soundtrack Album)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lLUDutopD_tC2JQt6m7FDQtoN6hXIFtp4
EchoVC Partners
https://www.echovc.com/
The meeting that showed me the truth about VCs. Tomer DeanThis is an easy to follow primer for understanding how exits affect fund performance.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/01/the-meeting-that-showed-me-the-truth-about-vcs/
What Informs an Investor’s Valuation of a Startup? Kolade Aderele
https://render.capital/blog/what-informs-an-investors-valuation-of-a-startup/
Thoughts on Y Combinator’s New Deal. A Perspective from Emerging Markets. Oo Nwoye
https://oonwoye.com/2022/01/12/thoughts-on-y-combinators-new-deal-a-perspective-from-emerging-markets/
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

FAQ with Eghosa:

Why does it take $500M to 1X a $50M fund and $1.35-1.4B to 3x a $50M fund?

Portfolio construction is the short answer. If you assume you own 10% of a startup at exit, then $500m of enterprise value created returns $50m. So it's not solely a scenario where a company in the portfolio exits at $500m, but what percentage you own at the exit. By the time you assume dilution, it gets harder to own 10% at exit.

2. Why does it take 10 Paystacks to return a $50M fund?

With Paystack, assume the exit multiple was 14.4x and assume you invested $1m into it. That is a $14.4m return sans dilution. You'd need to do that 10 times to return ~3x the fund.

This is not impossible but the assumptions about the entry price and the dilution that occur during the path to exit mean that the Paystack example is unusual. It raised just a Seed and a Series A prior to its $200m exit so the dilution was not material. Many companies may raise 3 or 4 times and that is where your starting ownership goes to die. I have seen quite a few Series Es and Fs. Series Gs and Hs exist.

3. How do the outcomes change when you introduce failure rates?

A ten-year $50m Africa fund with a 2.5% fee and expenses may leave you ~$38m to actually invest but let's use $35m of investable capital to illustrate. Let's say your strategy is to invest $1m checks, and assume you reserve $10m to defend your pro rata in certain deals. FWIW, a 20% reserve ratio is on the low side and it's more common to see 30-50% of the fund set aside for reserves.

You make 25 investments (25 * $1m = $25m), and your avg postmoney entry valuation is $10m so you buy 10%. Then you apply your reserves to defend your pro rata at the A (which are usually $15m+ rounds) so your check size is say, $1.5m. That means you can do ~6 follow-ons to protect your initial 10% holding.

If all 6 exit after that point so they don't raise again (almost statistically impossible), then you hold 10% of the aggregate exit value. You would have invested $2.5m ($1m initial check plus a $1.5m follow on) into each of the 6. Assuming they are all Paystack type exits at $200m (sure, everyone thinks they will be unicorns but actual exit data belies that) then your gross return from the 6 companies is $120m (10% * $200m per company * 6 companies).

But remember we started off by investing in 25 companies.

If 50% fail to return 1x or better, (remember that batting .300 (3 in 10) in major league baseball likely gets you in the hall of fame) then we are looking at ~13 companies to drive the fund returns. Of these 13, 6 based on our example will return $120m. Maybe the remaining 7, representing $7m of investments return 3x (unlikely but let's say so just for shits and giggles). Then the aggregate fund return is $120m + $21m = $141m.

On first read, that's a smashing success for a $50m fund and delivers the 20% carry (profit share) to the manager.

Here are some quick calculations to illustrate the return multiples.

$141m: dollars returned.

$35m: dollars invested by the GP.

$50m: dollars invested by LPs.

$141m/$35m = 4.02x $-at-work gross;

$141m/$50m = 2.82x trued up gross;

$141m - $50m [$91m] * 80% [$72.8m] + $50m [$122.8m] ÷ $50m = 2.45x net to LPs.

This example of course assumes no recycling i.e. the GP taking interim returns from early exits and reinvesting so that (s)he can get to invest the full $50m and not the $35m after fees. Doing so improves the odds for the fund as more dollars are working via startups and not just underwriting fees and expenses.

2.45x is still a great VC fund net return (that should put you in the top decile globally) but don't get too excited as Thoma Bravo and Vista Equity (multi-$B PE funds) have exceeded this threshold.

But to have six Paystack exits (and seven 3xrs) is quite the dream. I'd sleep in for that.

This then leads us to the power law. That is, one company sets up to return the whole fund. But for that to happen in a $50m fund, you have to have at least one $1b exit and own 5% of the company at exit (and after dilution). With the fundraising froth and (increased) round sizes, many companies would have raised 4-5 times before they become unicorns. That's at least 3-4 dilutive rounds.

This brings us full circle to why the entry price always matters. Buying 10% for $1m makes it harder to own 5% at a billion dollar exit. Buy 20% and then you have a shot.

But the entry prices are now so high (e.g. valuations for pre-seeds in the high single digits and seeds in the high teens or more) and the competition to invest is so excitably frothy (with price-insensitive investors committing hundreds of thousands of dollars after the first meeting), that $50m funds may actually need up to three unicorn exits to have a shot at returning 1x.

This business is like many others. It may seem easy from the outside looking in but it's really much harder than it appears and takes a long while to be successful. I am grateful to have found a career that I love and would do for free but make no mistake, it requires a ton of hard work, conviction, adaptability, and luck.

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Barbara Iyayi is an entrepreneur and investor with over 16 years of experience in venture capital, growth equity, and financial services. She has founded, invested in, scaled and advised, fintech and financial services companies globally. Currently, Barbara is the CEO & Founding Partner of Unicorn Growth Capital, an early-stage VC firm investing in the future of fintech. She also sits on the board of the World Wide Web Foundation.

Prior to launching Unicorn, she was the Chief Growth Officer and Managing Director for Africa of Element, a pioneer of mobile deep learning, and served as the Board Chair of Appzone, a fintech infrastructure platform enabling the delivery of digital financial services in Africa. Barbara was a member of the founding team of Atlas Mara, Africa’s first SPAC, and conducted $15 billion in global transactions for JPMorgan and UBS. Barbara received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Columbia University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why Barbara believes that African fintech is a lucrative investment opportunity
How fintech will help digitize the transactions of Africa's consumers and businesses, and catalyze its digital economy
How Barbara leveraged her understanding of the fintech opportunity to overcome bias and raise her first fund
What LPs get wrong about investing in new fund managers and African venture

Barbara’s Recommended Track & Featured Resources:

My Life. Mary J. Blige
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0eF8P177fA&list=OLAK5uy_mUVX4_2ajHRsfFeTLdtWZd78OqUwLMzm8
Unicorn Growth Capital
https://www.unicorngrowthcap.com/
Invest in African Investors: A long-term solution to funding underrepresented local African founders. Nacho Nwanahttps://nwanacho.medium.com/invest-in-african-investors-a-long-term-solution-to-funding-underrepresented-local-african-c9c8ca1a61ff
Best Of: This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Thinking. Ezra Klein Show. (per the mention of intuition in investing)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/best-of-this-conversation-will-change-how-you-think/id1548604447?i=1000546869257
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa. Tayo Akinyemi, Osarumen Osamuyi, and Tony Chen. (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 6 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. This episode’s guest artist is Hilda Moraa. Hilda is the Founder & CEO of Pezesha, a holistic digital financial infrastructure powering embedded finance to SMEs and institutions across Africa. She is an award-winning entrepreneur and author, who has more than 10 years of experience in fintech, regulation, and working with supply chain-driven multinationals such as Coca-Cola. Prior to launching Pezesha, she founded WezaTele, a Kenyan fintech startup that was acquired in 2015. Hilda has been named a Top 30 African Innovator by Quartz Africa, and an Obama Foundation Leader. Picking up on the previous conversation with Kuhle Mnisi of Secha Capital about the interplay between tech-enabled SMEs and tech startups, I chat to Hilda about how she’s building a tech company that’s creating an (eco)system of tech products to connect SME borrowers to capital.

In this episode, we discuss:

Hilda’s entrepreneurial journey, and what problem she’s solving with Pezesha
Why providing credit to SMEs is important and presents a valuable opportunity
What constitutes key elements of Pezesha’s lending infrastructure and business model
How being a systems-builder impacts Pezesha’s trajectory, and what constitutes key enablers for systems-building businesses

Hilda’s Recommended Track & Featured Resources:

Rain. Yemi Alade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERMoAHnf2Vw
Pezesha
https://www.sechacapital.com/
A Kenyan Startup Journey: My 10 Key Lessons. Hilda Moraa
https://hildamorara.com/index.php/buy-my-book/
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 5 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. This episode’s guest artist is Kuhle Mnisi. Kuhle is a Principal at Secha Capital, which she joined to marry her finance skill with a deep passion for impact. Prior to joining Secha, Kuhle worked as an Assistant Lecturer at the University of Cape Town, and interned with Act in Africa, a design thinking and entrepreneurship development program, as well as Goldman Sachs in investment banking and PwC in auditing. In this conversation, Kuhle and I explore the SME investment opportunity, how it’s similar to and different from tech, and the ways in which tech-enabled SMEs and tech ventures play complementary roles in the broader venture ecosystem in Africa.

In this episode, we discuss:

Why Kuhle joined Secha Capital, a patient capital holding company that invests in African SMEs looking to grow
Secha's mission and approach: how it defines SMEs and why they present robust investment opportunities
Why it’s important for SMEs to adopt technology
How SMEs and tech startups are connected, and how SMEs fuel tech startup growth

Kuhle's Recommended Track & Featured Resources:

Konke. (I Want It All.) Seba Kaapstad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaHZSn8UgYg
Secha Capital
https://www.sechacapital.com/
An Arsenal of Operator-Investors for Africa (article)
https://ssir.org/articles/entry/an_arsenal_of_operator_investors_for_africa
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 4 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. This episode’s guest artist is Abieyuwa Obaseki, a consultant at Stears Data, a division of Stears Business. Stears’ mission is to make it easy for anyone anywhere in the world to access high quality information and data on Africa. Abieyuwa currently focuses on delivering insights to, for, and about Nigeria’s technology and innovation ecosystems. Prior to Stears, she was a strategy consultant, advising clients in the UK across multiple sectors such as banking, telecoms, and consumer goods.

In this episode, we discuss:

How Stears Nigeria came to be, and why it aspires to be the “Bloomberg of Africa”
The “proper” size of consumer and b2b markets in Nigeria
Key indicators of consumption readiness for Nigerian consumers
What enables consumption in Nigeria
How fintech enables business, consumption, and financial inclusion

Abieyuwa’s Recommended Track & Featured Resources:

One Step at a Time. Jordan Sparks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIE5QtkxzvM
Stears Business
https://www.stearsng.com/
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa.
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 3 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. Jake is a Co-founder of the DFS Lab, an early-stage investor and accelerator that supports entrepreneurs to refine, grow, and launch digital commerce ventures in Africa. He is formerly a Deputy Director with the Financial Inclusion team at the Gates Foundation, where he funded and worked closely with M-Pesa and many other successful mobile money innovations that comprised the first and second waves of success across Africa and South Asia. Prior to joining the Foundation, he served as an economist with the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) at the World Bank.

In this episode, we discuss:

Jake’s journey from Peace Corps volunteer and academic to Africa-focused investor
Why digital commerce is a robust investment opportunity
Why digital economy development will look different on the continent
How to size African consumer markets and enable consumption
Why the trajectory of capital inflows into Africa is on track

Jake’s Recommended Track & Featured Resources:

C.R.E.A.M. Wu-Tang Clan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwAxmrE194
Sufficient Capital website (a community of investors exploring early-stage African startups together through DFS Lab and its network))
https://www.sufficient.capital/
Sufficient Capital launch announcement
https://medium.com/dfs-lab/announcing-sufficient-capital-from-dfs-lab-f227ad4ff10e
DFS Lab Series on frontier markets and consumption in Africa
- Frontier Blindspots: https://medium.com/dfs-lab/the-frontier-blind-spot-de7a2f9abe98
- Fortune at the Middle of the Pyramid: https://medium.com/dfs-lab/fortune-at-the-middle-of-the-pyramid-3a6886eb97f3
- Who is the African Consumer?: https://medium.com/dfs-lab/who-is-the-african-consumer-342fb32675a5
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa: https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

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Welcome to Track 2 of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. It’s inspired by the concept of a mixtape, in which each episode, or “track” will feature a conversation with a “guest artist”. There is also a soundtrack for inspiration provided by (DJ) Saphir Esmail via his Spotify playlist (link below).

Our guest artist is Dotun Olowoporoku. Most recently, Dotun was an Associate Director at Novastar Ventures, an early stage fund that invests in businesses addressing the biggest problems for the low income mass markets in Africa. Prior to joining Novastar, Dotun was the Managing Partner and co-founder at Growthlab (previously Starta) a startup advisory firm for high growth startups in Africa. Dotun started his career as a research fellow on air quality and climate change in Bristol, England. In 2012, he founded an on-demand food delivery platform, leading the startup to scale across 3 cities in the UK and facilitated a strategic partnership with Just-Eat UK Plc in 2015. Dotun has a PhD in environmental management. He is the host of Building the Future podcast which chronicles African growth narrative through one-on-one conversation entrepreneurs, thought leaders and innovators shaping the African future.

In this episode, we discuss:

Dotun’s journey from academic to operator to two-time VC
Why Africans have a unique opportunity to solve African problems and build unicorns
How investors use trend data to think through opportunities
Why talent and access to capital are the keys to unlocking venture opportunities
Why fintech is the future of enabling consumption in Africa

Dotun’s Recommended Track & Featured Resources:

Exodus. Bob Marley and the Wailers - Live at the Stanley Theatre (9/23/1980)
https://open.spotify.com/track/3O7LY3NQXn7R12Ey6rlgmh
Dotun's most resent investment in TeamApt
https://techcrunch.com/2021/07/01/teamapt-will-use-its-new-funding-round-to-provide-digital-bank-services-for-the-unbanked/?guccounter=1
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:

https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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Welcome to Track 1, the inaugural episode of The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. With the unique African landscape—market characteristics, business environment, goals, and culture—as a starting point, The Trajectory Africa aims to pinpoint a destination for African tech, and the signposts that signal direction of travel. It’s inspired by the concept of a mixtape, in which each episode, or “track” will feature a conversation with a “guest artist”. There is also a soundtrack for inspiration provided by (DJ) Saphir Esmail via his Spotify playlist (link below).

My guest artist is Tony Chen. Tony is a Partner at Verdant Frontiers and Co-Founder of Kinyungu Ventures. Tony has enjoyed 24+ years creating new businesses, launching five companies with multiple exits. He co-founded Redica Systems (formerly Govzilla), a SaaS business he led as CEO for 8 years until 2017. Tony and his family lived in rural Kenya for three years, where he built a portfolio of 15 Kenyan companies. Tony is also on the Investment Committee for Triphammer Ventures. Tony earned a BS in Chemical Engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Northwestern Kellogg School of Management.

In this episode, we discuss:

How and why Tony’s journey as an Africa-focused investor began in Kenya
Why research was a key element of Kinyungu’s fund launch process
What Tony learned from the research, and how his investing approach has changed
How Kinyungu Ventures has changed, and plans for the future

Tony’s Recommended Track & Featured Resources:

My Shot. Lin Manuel Miranda, Anthony Ramos, Davide Diggs, Okierete Onaodowan, Leslie Odom, Jr., original Broadway cast of Hamilton. Hamilton. https://spoti.fi/2Uq3IJ3
Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa.
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/

DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist: https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

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This is a brief introduction to The Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. With the unique African landscape—market characteristics, business environment, goals, and culture—as a starting point, The Trajectory Africa aims to pinpoint a destination for African tech, and the signposts that signal direction of travel. It’s inspired by the concept of a mixtape, in which each episode, or “track” will feature a conversation with a “guest artist”. There is also a soundtrack for inspiration provided by (DJ) Saphir Esmail (bio below) via his Spotify playlist (link below). You can find more African tech and VC resources below as well. Enjoy!

About Me:I've has spent several years working in African tech and entrepreneurship, with an emphasis on building enabling infrastructure such as tech hubs and accelerators. Recently, I have focused on conducting research, specifically on early stage investing in Africa with Kinyungu Ventures and thesubtext, the role of tech hubs in African startup ecosystems for the International Trade Centre, shared models of ownership for the Open Society Initiative for West Africa, and the future of work in Africa with the RSA. Prior to this I served as a Senior Consultant with infoDev/the World Bank Group for XL Africa, and as the first Executive Director of AfriLabs.

About Saphir Esmail:
Saphir is a dual degree MBA/MA candidate at The Wharton School and The Lauder Institute with a focus on Africa. He is from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Saphir graduated from Temple University with a degree in Finance. After graduating, Saphir went on to work for Deloitte as a consultant focused on the financial services industry. Saphir is passionate about entrepreneurship and venture capital in Africa. He has spent the past year working at Golden Palm Investments, an early-stage fund that invests exclusively in Africa across various industries. After Wharton, Saphir hopes to make his way back to the continent to work at an Africa-focused fund.

Spotify Playlist:This playlist was originally used at the 2021 Lauder Institute Africa Symposium on the Future of Work.
https://spoti.fi/2RS6hTc

Chasing Outliers:https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/
African Tech and VC Resources:

Podcasts

The Africa Playbook:
A podcast and newsletter series that builds a blueprint for what African success stories could look like
https://open.spotify.com/show/7dHItKVK9QzNChFJZa75Bb
African Tech Roundup:
Independent, Africa-focused, technology, digital, and innovation, insight and analysis
https://www.africantechroundup.com/
Building the Future:
Conversations with innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders, who are shaping the African future
https://drdotun.com/
The Flip:
Contextually relevant insights from entrepreneurs and investors changing the status quo
https://theflip.africa/
Invest in the Future:
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
https://anchor.fm/future-africa/

Newsletters/Substacks

The Africa Playbook:
A podcast and newsletter series that builds a blueprint for what African success stories could look like
https://theafricaplaybook.substack.com/
Africa: The Big Deal:
A weekly two-minute read on the African start-up ecosystem, based on a curated database of deals from across the continent
https://thebigdeal.substack.com/
BriterEYE:
A monthly compilation of deal, sector, and research insight, focused on underserved markets
https://briterbridges.com/
Movemeback Pulse:
A weekly roundup of happenings in Africa
https://www.movemeback.com/pulse/
insiderPR:
Company news, events, and interesting Twitter conversations, focused on emerging markets
https://beaninsider.com/
TCDaily: daily African tech newsletter:
A comprehensive roundup of technology news on the African continent
https://techcabal.com/category/tc-daily/
Tech Cabal, The Next Wave:
A newsletter that provides a weekly in-depth analysis of tech and innovation in Africa
https://bit.ly/3fg8XSv
The Subtext:
Essays examining the mobile internet's impact, the causes of adoption, and mental models showing how [not what] to think about markets across the African continent
https://www.thesubtext.io/
Unevenly Distributed:
A bi-weekly newsletter that tracks the diffusion of technology, entrepreneurship, and venture capital, in emerging markets
https://derin.substack.com/

Live Sessions with Recordings

Tech Cabal Live:
A virtual event series that features experienced players in Africa's tech ecosystem sharing insights and experiences about topical issues
https://www.youtube.com/user/TechCabal
Untapped Global:
A weekly show recorded live weekly, aiming to connect frontier market entrepreneurs with global angel investors
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCee7y-Ktn0NAYyn1v057o_w

The Trajectory: Africa: Recent Episodes

Tayo Akinyemi