Founder/Managing Partner @savannahfund Africa tech investing | Stanford MBA | Ex-PM MSFT Excel | Tanzanian & Pan-Africanist
San Francisco & East Africa
Joined May 2008
- Tweets19.2K
- Following3.3K
- Followers6.3K
- Likes1K
Pinned Tweet
2010 - 2019:
🌉 🌍 Left Seattle/Microsoft & broke into VC bridging Silicon Valley to Africa
📈 📊 Started @SavannahFund funding 30+ Africa focused startups
🇹🇿 🏡 Moved home Tanzania, settling in Arusha after 20+ years living in 🇬🇧 🇺🇲 🇰🇪 closer to identity, family & passions
Could extend the argument, African startups are under funded needing more "time in Africa" for PMF inflection point or commercial success. Saw that @mkopakenya took 8 years to get to their first 1M customers/consumers... And it's one of the most "well funded" African startups.
Big crime of Euro VC; we underfund our companies early.
18 months is not enough runway for most.
V1 will rarely work, V2 likely might not either.
You need room for V3 also. You will take a hit on dilution but the price inflection on next round will make the difference.
2
322
1) Must have fintech 🏦
2) Must go to Nigeria 🇳🇬
3) Must be US domiciled 🇺🇸
Pick at least 2 if you want to raise at least $50M from investors as an African startup...
Am I wrong?
#Africatech
@asemota @wizaj @mrstephendeng @africatechie
Congratulations to Ubongo! It's been a long journey to find a successor to Nisha Ligon's incredible leadership but confident Mwasi Wilmore will be able to take Ubongo to the next level! lnkd.in/efiG_aHM
Kenyan startup Sendy seeks to raise $100 million by 2022 to fund its expansion in western and southern Africa bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
1
@sendwaveapp - Building a Cashless Africa - by Everett Randle - The Valley of Dunning-Kruger @tnatw
Amazing write up on Africa fintech. Banks/Telcos on the continent should be nervous esp when overlaying crypto/DeFi opportunity randle.substack.com/p/wave
Nigeria to partner with Bitt Inc to launch 'eNaira' digital currency @tnatw reuters.com/technology/niger…
Interesting to ponder for MoMo Telcos vs Wallet/remittance fintechs in Africa - hard to create additional lines of business (except telcos?) whilst there's unbundling of banking with fintechs ranging from loans to wealth management. Is everyone trying to be the Revolut of Africa?
Heard a lot of seed pitches from fintechs that don’t want to monetize their primary offering.
I think that’s (generally) a mistake:
1. you won’t convert all users to secondary offering
2. you have to achieve product market fit in both offerings to succeed which is much harder
1
3
Is there enough monetization opportunity given low Africa consumer ARPU beyond the essentials 1) money transfers 2) loans and 3) crypto.... This makes it hard for fintechs to have good shot at second or 3rd line of business outside of telcos...? @mikepquinn @wizaj @asemota
1
Must read for #Africa focused #fintech founders & Investors Check out this book by @mikepquinn: "Failing To Win: Hard-earned lessons…" by Mike Quinn a.co/6AOzgQD cc @dunkhippo33 @wizaj @oviosu
Digital Taxes coming to Tanzania. Kenya also. More countries to follow? @tnatw thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/ne…
Smile Identity $7M Series A raise for Africa KYC tools #fintech @tnatw @FintechPaymnts
techcrunch.com/2021/07/08/sm…
Good example on "Reverse Innovation" Zipline focus is more US market after Africa start. @tnatw
techcrunch.com/2021/06/30/zi…
@tnatw Mobile money rich region eyes CBDC regional East Africa Currency businessdailyafrica.com/bd/d…
Future of mobility - car subscriptions in South Africa @tnatw moneyweb.co.za/mymoney/money…