GP @ Caban Global Reach | Fintech & PE | Scaling capital access in Africa & frontier markets building @wayfinco | Author, brain tumor survivor, Dad
London, England
Joined April 2015
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Most founders do not need more investor names.
They need a better capital route.
ScaleSignals helps founders understand which funders fit, what evidence they need, and how to approach them without wasting months.
Start here: Scalesignals.substack.com
Five questions before you sign venture debt:
1. All-in cost, warrants included?
2. What triggers a covenant breach?
3. Repayment timing vs revenue?
4. Treatment at the next round?
5. What happens at a dull exit?
If the lender answers faster than you can, slow down.
Funders and advisers: what's the one line in a pitch that made you take the meeting? Best answers may go in Sunday's essay (anonymised, I'll ask first).
Ben Botes retweeted
Capital signal: UK startups, Q3 2026.
Equity raised: €4.4bn, down 22.6% on Q3 2025.
Debt rounds: €7.4bn, about 63% of the total.
The debt figure comes from a handful of very large deals, so it says little about the typical company.
Source: Tech EU Funding Explorer, data as of 28 Oct 2026.
ALT Graphic: 63% of UK startup funding in Q3 2026 was debt, not equity. Debt rounds 7.4 billion euros; equity 4.4 billion euros, down 22.6% on Q3 2025. Source: Tech.eu Funding Explorer, data as of 28 Oct 2026.
Founders: pitch your raise in one line. Stage. Amount. The route you're trying. I'll reply to the clearest ones with the first question a funder would ask.
Ben Botes retweeted
A small Sunday task: open your data room and check the date on the newest document.
If it is older than your last board pack, a lender will notice before you do.
ALT Graphic asking: when was the newest document in your data room last updated? A. This week. B. This month. C. Before our last board pack. Reply A, B or C.
You May Not Need to Raise the Whole Round
Before approaching investors, separate the money needed to discover whether the business works from the money needed to deliver what already works.
scalesignals.substack.com/p/…
Five questions before you sign a venture debt term sheet:
1. What's the all-in cost, warrants included?
2. What triggers a covenant breach?
3. When does repayment start, and when does the revenue arrive?
4. What happens to this debt at your next round?
5. What happens at a dull exit?
If the lender answers faster than you can, slow down.
Unpopular view: the idea that Africa needs more VCs is the wrong diagnosis.
64% of the money committed to Africa-focused funds last year came from DFIs. African investors put in 21%. (AVCA)
The gap isn't GPs. It's LPs.
Until local pensions, family offices and the diaspora have a simple way in, African funds will keep raising from the same narrow set of institutions.
African startup funding rose 27% in Q1.
$100k–$500k rounds fell from 73 to 32.
Nobody turned the small cheque down. It left the market.
Route before list.
Join the Wayfin early access list here: wayfin.co/waitlist/
Otter.ai has raised $320m without selling equity.
That is not free money. Dilution has been replaced by a repayment obligation.
The lesson is not “use debt.”
It is that once growth produces measurable customer value, a company has more than one kind of capital to negotiate.
Choose possibility.
UK venture managers raised $6.9bn last quarter. UK startups raised $6.1bn.
They sound like the same story. They aren’t.
One is capital raised to deploy over several years. The other is capital already allocated.
A fund closing does not mean its mandate fits you.
Choose possibility.
The October version of th elatest capital routes is now live on Substack
scalesignals.substack.com/p/…
