In January 2021, our CEO, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, wrote a letter to you, outlining Future Africa’s bold vision as we continue to build Africa’s future by backing mission-driven startups that are solving Africa’s biggest challenges.
Here's an update on how far we've come since you read that letter. We continue to push our strong belief as pioneers in a community-based model for venture capital in Africa. We've grown this community by admitting more members into Future Africa Collective - our exclusive community of angel investors and raising more money for the Future Africa Fund - our uniquely designed rolling fund.
We’re blown away by how much capital we can raise for mission-driven founders in a matter of hours. In March, we raised $500,000 within an hour for a startup we presented to the collective.
Here are some important milestones we’ve achieved in 2021 so far:
- We’ve backed 13 startups with $3million in capital, bringing our total number of investments as a fund to 47. This figure is 2X what we deployed in 2020.
- We’ve made more pan-African investments and our portfolio now includes startups in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa.
- We’ve surpassed our $1million commitment to women-led startups and are currently evaluating more women-led startups in our pipeline to increase this number.
In no particular order, we present the 13 companies we’ve backed in 2021 so far. Unfortunately, some of them are yet to announce their fundraises, so we have to retract their names:
We co-led Termii’s $1.4M seed round with Kepple Africa Ventures. Termii is a fast-growing startup out of Lagos that helps African businesses send, analyse and optimise digital communications across e-mail, SMS, voice, and WhatsApp. Read more about Termii here.
We participated in Lami’s $1.8m seed round. Led by Jihan Abass, Lami is helping African insurers use artificial intelligence to provide better services to the insured and expand faster to the uninsured.
Ongair is a customer service platform for businesses. It allows companies to interact with their customers via major messaging apps like WeChat, Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and Telegram.
We participated in Stitch’s $4m seed round. Coming out of stealth, Stitch is building APIs to enable fintechs to connect to their customers’ accounts across Africa.
Join The Future Africa Collective – an exclusive community of co-investors partnering with mission-driven startups to build the future of Africa. With your $1,000 annual subscription fee, you get access to invest a minimum of $5,000 in up to 20 African startups each year.
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Others
- A startup connecting Africans to the global economy with cryptocurrency. We’re impressed not just by its founding team but its ability to develop products despite challenges in this market.
- A pharmaceutical startup that uses Artificial Intelligence to solve the drug counterfeiting problem in Africa.
- A startup building programmable cards. Its API helps businesses create flexible virtual and physical cards for multiple purposes.
- A startup in the retail space, providing credit-backed goods for retailers in Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania and Nigeria.
- A digital bank enabling transactions for financial organisations operating in the UK-Africa corridor. This bank will first solve for the UK-Africa corridor and expand into the rest of Europe.
- A startup helping African distributors manage inventory and sales. It’s growing fast and now supports distributors on its platform, with almost 400 merchants.
- A startup helping FMCGs and similar organisations optimise sales and distribution. Its clients include large telecom operators and the biggest manufacturers in Africa.
- A digital bank for African immigrants. It facilitates remittances and other payments between the diaspora and home.
- A digital learning and school management platform for African students. This platform is now active in 3 countries and used by over 700 schools.
We thank our outstanding Future Africa Collective members who have joined us to support these startups with capital, coaching and community - we will not be here without you all.
Applications to the Future Africa Collective remain open. With your $1,000 annual subscription fee, you get access to invest a minimum of $5,000 in up to 20 African startups each year.
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We also thank all our LPs in the Future Africa Fund. For a commitment of $25,000 per quarter, you can become an LP in the Future Africa Fund - a uniquely designed venture capital fund where we invest all year round in African innovators.
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Our fund is always open to founders. We fund early-stage mission-driven founders who are turning Africa’s most significant challenges into global business opportunities. If this sounds like you and your time, please apply to the fund.
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As always, we look forward to the future of Africa - a continent where purpose and prosperity are within everyone’s reach.
