Investing in African Talent with YC's Michael Seibel & Microtraction's Kwamena Afful
Listen now
Description
Today's guests are Michael Seibel, the Managing Director of Y Combinator, and Kwamena Afful, a Founding Partner of Microtraction.  Michael has been an avid supporter of the African tech ecosystem. Since his first trip to Lagos in 2016, and since Paystack joined YC's winter batch earlier that year, the number of African startups that have participated in the global accelerator has grown to 89.  And for Microtraction, the early-stage fund was founded in 2017, in part in relation to the increased global interest in the African tech ecosystem, where Microtraction's early financial support and local know-how could help fill the gap.  In this episode, we hear from Michael and Kwamena about their shared perspectives on the opportunities they see and their bet on African talent. 00:00 - Intro03:08 - Honorary Chieftan Michael Seilbel04:28 - Supporting the African tech ecosystem07:41 - Fintech deep dive10:19 - Software companies crossing borders14:49 - Solving African problems22:24 - What about the continent's population growth?25:47 - Investing in African talent29:38 - Creating jobs31:44 - Connecting African talent to the global marketplace 🔗 Our Links🔔 Youtube -  https://youtube.com/@theflipafrica💻 Website - https://theflip.africa🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/theflipafrica👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/theflipafrica📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/theflipafrica
More Episodes
These climate investors are funding climate startups using a hands-on venture-building model to support founders across Africa.  In this episode, we’re joined by James Mwangi from Africa Climate Ventures, Maxime Bayen from Catalyst Fund, and Lyndsay Holley Handler from Delta40. We discuss why...
Published 11/11/24
There are millions of Moniepoint point-of-sale terminals in use across Nigeria. These point-of-sale devices power Nigeria’s offline economy, and while there are many competitors in this space, Moniepoint appears to beating them all.  How did they do it? How did Moniepoint grow so quickly? And...
Published 08/29/24
Published 08/29/24