Startups in Africa have experienced increasing access to venture capital over the last few years. I have actively been following the scene in the last few months and wrote about it here.
Working on the above linked article, I realized getting pre-2017 funding data was challenging and almost unavailable. So I came up with the idea to track the funding announcements of two notable tech startup publications–Techcabal and Techpoint–to see what info I could find. …
1. Upward funding trend
In 2017, $560m was invested into African startups by VCs focused on African markets. It was a 53% increase compared to 2016, 2x the funding amount of 2015 and 14x the fundraise amount in 2012.
$168m was deployed into 120 African startups in H1 with about 24% of those startups raised over $1m. Incubators and accelerator programs are doing good to support the ecosystem, contributing to 27 deals in H1 2018.
There’s an increase in dollars into the startup ecosystem, especially at the seed round. However, international VCs with larger fund size are looking to invest in startups with proven…
I was speaking with my mentor some days ago and we touched on some developing themes we believe are worth exploring across the African startup ecosystem. I will add to this list as new themes emerge.
Inclusive Fintech
A large number of Africans still do not have access to financial services. 70% of people in sub-saharan Africa do have a bank account. In Nigeria, a country where technologically adoption is more advanced has 61% of the adult population un- or underbanked.
The business models of banks means they lack the incentive to serve rural areas with low value customers who are expensive to acquire and service
Access to a bank account and other financial services will have a ripple effect allowing access to other services such as lending, insurance, health care, investment products and all other services.
The…
Not too long ago, there was this very new thing called The Internet. It was a concept only few people fathomed. Those few knew it’s potential and how it might function, but all else didn’t know what was coming.
Flash forward to today… one does not need any form of technical education to understand what the internet is or its basic use. In a way, I see the blockchain in that same light. It’s a developing concept, currently hard to grasp, with the potential to be the breakthrough technology of the 21st century.
Sometime in January, I ran into my friend and fellow MEST Alum Emmanuel at the MEST incubator. We had a long chat about technology, blockchain, data science and all other frontier tech. Emmanuel got into data science before I did and I always fed off his knowledge whenever I could.
While having the conversation, we realised we needed to have more of these conversations with data science enthusiasts and practitioners alike. There and then, we decided to host a data science meetup. …
What to think about when valuing your startup
As a founder at an early stage startup, you, an investor or someone else is going to be interested in the value of your business. Now, a third party looking from the outside in is looking through certain experiences and biases that may not necessarily align with how you see the business. This is where the strength of the founder comes to play because she knows what an investor or third party doesn’t.
What do you tell the investor your business is valued at?
It is said the value of a thing is ‘Whatever anyone is willing to pay for…
A data science point-of-view
The year 2017 was good for the Nigerian music industry. There were new collaborations with local and international artists, and an array of never ending hit songs. It also had it’s fair share of controversies headlined by Wizkid’s and Davido’s beef and reunion.
After reading this article, I began to wonder if there could be a more data driven way to come up with a top 10 list influenced by the fans and music listeners, not an award committee. Did some search that lead me to the YouTube API.
The Data
The YouTube Data api v3 provides access to YouTube videos, channels…
And some tools that helped
I am a lover of technology. I loved owning the greatest gadgets, staying on top of the latest happenings in tech and discussing tech. I even switched careers to technology.
But I realised I was consumed, I was addicted. I couldn’t get things done cos I had an array of devices and apps that constantly distracted me. Twitter, Medium, Instagram, Pocket and a few other apps. (I have never really been addicted to Facebook) I open one medium article, and within seconds, I have 10 tabs of medium articles open. …
Before my sojourn into tech, I used to have a lot of discussions with friends (business grads) and colleagues about different startup ideas. In hindsight, I believe those ideas were not so great. But back then, we believed the ideas were awesome. Why didn’t we execute you might ask? We got the business part figured out but tech was an issue. Developers were relatively not so affordable. They were even hard to come by.
We arrived at the conclusion that getting the business to run was the easy part but building and finding the right tech talent was the hard…
This was inspired by Derek Sivers who created the page so he doesn’t have to keep typing out replies when people ask ‘ what are you doing now’. I’m doing likewise but rather than having it on my personal website, I’m putting on medium so I can be more accountable to myself
What I’m working on now
JoppaLogic — Currenly rolling out an on-demand delivery service in Accra
SomeofAll Podcast — is a podcast focused on techies and their growth in the industry
Learning data science —If you have any interesting data project, holla. Trying to get my hands dirty.
Thread — I put some…
Oluwole Oyekanmi
Learning | I write about data, startups, and investing
