The Trajectory Africa’s first principles series was inspired by a desire to understand the drivers and assumptions underlying investable opportunities in key sectors hypothesized to be the engine of African VC, starting with fintech. Across 11 episodes, we explored the opportunities for, and limits of, ubiquitous digitalization and the role of fintech, the jobs to be done by, and characteristics of, a digitally enabled financial system, the case for infrastructure building in payments,...

In Episode 1 of this series, Abraham Augustine, Research Partner of trendsAf and Comms and Programs Lead at Norrsken warned against “long arm, no mouth” syndrome and the risks of digitalizing one part of a system (distributed solar energy, for example) without considering where the barriers and effects might materialize (think missing payment rails). Infrastructure is great, but it can’t be half-baked, and those pipes need something to carry. That something is trade. Previous guests Samora...

Back in Episode 7 of Trajectory Africa’s first series, Barbara Iyayi, CEO & Founding Partner of Unicorn Growth Capital made a strong statement about the ubiquity of financial services,  arguing that every company should be a fintech company. Because as long as financial inclusion is a huge problem, every company should be able to offer financial services. This is the essence of embedded finance, which McKinsey defines as placing a financial product in a nonfinancial customer experience,...

In the previous episode of The Trajectory Africa, we explored the art and science of community lending to microbusinesses. In this episode, we turn from business lending to consumer savings, but as an antidote to a consumer lending model called buy now, pay later, or BNPL.  BNPL emerged as a global trend in the wake of  COVID-19 and the  tough macroeconomic environment that accompanied it. As inflation increased the cost of living, people started using these short term loans issued, after a...

In the previous episode of the Trajectory Africa, we heard from Kiiru Muhoya and Judith Bogonko at Fingo about the importance of cultivating Africa’s youth as the next generation of retail consumers of financial services. In this episode, we’ll hear how Femi Iromini, Co-Founder and CEO of Moni, and his team, have created a community lending model for microbusinesses that has the DNA of a not completely neobank, if the "neo" in neobank, means digital only. The rule of thumb in lending is it’s...

According to research by global consultancy Simon-Kucher in 2022, fewer than 5% of neobanks were profitable. A recent update suggests that most are still loss-makers, although a path to profitability is emerging.  Also in 2022, Tech Cabal’s reporting on Kuda Bank’s NPLs (non-performing loans) sparked a discussion about what levels make sense for companies doing instant loans. And in a brilliant series of episodes about African neobanks, Afrobility posed a fundamental question: how do you...

This episode of The Trajectory Africa features Yele Oyekola, Co-founder and CEO of Duplo, a company on a mission to streamline financial operations for African businesses. We’re diving deep into the world of digitizing financial operations, from payables and expense management to reconciliation and reporting.  Africa’s $1.5T B2B payments market represents a massive opportunity in a space that’s ripe for innovation—think medium to large businesses in industries like FMCG, logistics and...

On this special episode of The Trajectory Africa, we’re featuring “someone you should know”—David Ogundeko, Founder and Chief Vision Officer for Funema, a last-mile, impact-focused, alternative investment company.  David has spent the last 7 years creating a model to engineer and invest in problem solving, impact creating, high growth SMEs. In the process, he’s reimagining a VC model for Africa, and has built the operational muscle to back his claims.  In this conversation, we’ll learn how...

On this episode of The Trajectory Africa, we’re talking to Ola Oyetayo, Co-Founder and CEO of Verto, the first "all in one" cross-border payments platform for corporate treasuries in emerging markets. He’ll help us understand the mechanics of cross-border payments, why they're so expensive in Africa, how to improve price transparency and manage volatility, and how supporting cross-border payments evolves into accounts payable workflows.  We're picking up a theme that emerged in Episode 2,...

On the previous episode of The Trajectory Africa, Wiza Jalakasi, Africa Market Development Director at EBANX suggested that infrastructure-building consumer payments businesses create value because of the sheer number of payment methods available, from mobile money to bank transfers and cards. With all these options, businesses taking consumer payments need a neutral third party to provide a single point of aggregation. But what does it *actually* take to build this type of infrastructure?...

On this episode of The Trajectory Africa, we’ll hear from Wiza Jalakasi, Director for Africa Market Development at EBanx, a payments processor headquartered in Brazil. He’ll shed some light on why building payment rails in Africa is deceptively hard work—from why some payment methods work better in some places than others to whether infrastructure-building or enabling payments through APIs is the best way to create value. Tune in to hear about: [5:41] Key milestones in payments...

On this episode of The Trajectory Africa’s current series, "The Engine of African Venture: A Return to First Principles", we’re laying the foundation for a deeper exploration of fintech by stepping back to understand the system(s) that fintech creates and operates in. For that, we’re chatting with Samora Kariuki, Founder of the Frontier Fintech newsletter and Director at Sote, a company that’s building African supply chain infrastructure, about the goals and characteristics of Africa’s...

This is the first episode of Part 1 of a new series on The Trajectory Africa —The Engine of African Venture, A Return to First Principles. This series will explore what powers fundamental value creation and investability in sectors that drive the bulk of African VC opportunities. Part 1 is focused on fintech, and this episode with Abraham Augustine, Comms & Programs Lead for Norrsken, tackles the premise that digitalizing African economies is the African investment opportunity. Abraham...

The Trajectory Africa’s second series, The Engine of African Venture: A Return to First Principles, is a two-part exploration of what powers fundamental value creation and investability in sectors that drive African VC opportunities. The first part is focused on fintech, starting from the premise that digitizing African economies is the African investment opportunity. From this foundation, the series will explore fintech’s subsectors—from market opportunities to business models—to tease out...

Welcome to Episode 5, the next to last of Dans les Coulisses, a series exploring VC and tech entrepreneurship in Francophone Africa, brought to you by Impact Hub Dakar and The Trajectory Africa.  For this episode, we have two guests: Birame Sock and Madji Sock.  Birame Sock is a technology expert with over 20 years of experience as a tech entrepreneur and high-level executive in the digital space. She recently founded Kwely, a B2B wholesale sourcing marketplace that showcases products made...

Welcome to Episode 4 of Dans les Coulisses, a series exploring VC and tech entrepreneurship in Francophone Africa, brought to you by Impact Hub Dakar and The Trajectory Africa.   This episode’s guest is Tijan Watt. Tijan is a Co-Founder and General Partner of Wuri Ventures, a pan-African venture capital fund focused on pre-seed and seed opportunities. Tijan has spent 20 years as an operator, building companies in Senegal and in the US, and as an investor, working in investment banking at...

In this conversation with founder, investor, and ecosystem builder, Omar Cissé, we discuss VC opportunities in Francophone markets, key characteristics of Francophone markets and the Senegalese startup ecosystem, how to build African startup "champions", and more.

Welcome to The Trajectory Africa: Rewind, the summary episode for the Trajectory Africa, a podcast series exploring the trajectory, or pathway, of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. The Rewind features key insights from the series, distilling them into six “principles” (or principles in training) that help explain the emerging logic behind VC opportunities in Africa.

In this episode, Babacar Seck and I discuss how he started his career in venture capital and private equity, Proparco’s distinct characteristics as an LP and how it evaluates funds, how DFIs’ ESG standards benefit African VC, common mistakes that GPs make while fundraising and how the process works against them, why Africans, women, and first-time GPs struggle to raise money; what drives fund underperformance generally and how LPs can help; and what micro and macro factors will drive future...

In this episode, I speak with Danai Musandu about how she got into VC/PE, the fundraising process and how it differs by LP type, what LPs look for when they evaluate funds, the do’s and don’ts of raising money, and why deep listening and cultural multi-linguality are super powers for investor relations professionals.

In this episode, Track 8, I chat with Eghosa Omoigui, Managing General Partner of EchoVC Partners about designing high-performing, Africa-focused funds and how exits impact fund performance.

This conversation with Africa-focused investor Barbara Iyayi takes a bird’s eye view of fintech as a cross-cutting enabler and investment opportunity, digging into how it will turbocharge Africa’s digital economy by digitizing the everyday transactions of consumers and businesses. It also tackles how Barbara conquered the challenges she faced while raising a fund as an African, female, first time GP, and how LPs can overestimate the risk of investing in emerging fund managers and African...

In this episode, Hilda and I chat about how she’s building a tech company that’s creating an (eco)system of tech products to connect SME borrowers to much-needed capital.