ANGEL INVESTOR’S YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW & THE FUTURE AS A NEW FINANCING INSTRUMENT FOR EARLY STAGE TECH STARTUPS IN BOTSWANA
Bold enough to say if you are building a tech disruptive startup the financing you are looking for isnt odinary capital its ‘Smart Capital’.
This philosophy has been proven by many startup entrepreneurs who have gone on to create some of the world’s larges businesses — all because they got backed by angel investors. Allow me to say it in a different way ‘Angel Investment is active in Botswana and as our backer Neo Nwako would say to us NGWANA AFRICA ; DREAM BIG, START SMALL, THINK PLATFORM, ACT NOW, THINK GLOBALLY, START LOCALLY!
So now lets share why this in line with what is happening globally when we talk about platform as the next frontier and why startups should only look for smart capital;
1. Data from briterintelligence.com indicates that the startup ecosystem will hit (and likely exceed) $5 billion in funding by the end of 2021. Seeing these stats on Bloomberg LP is huge validation for angel investors across Africa and a sign we need to keep building market intelligence on startup investing as the new stock market and a new asset class for new digital economy. Botswana is on track as we can others are paying it forward AbariCom
2. There are now over 1,000 active investors who have signed cheques to startups in Africa over the past 3 years and we have plenty of data on them. Where they are based, which deals they have closed, in which sector, in which geography. This is all accessible here — https://thebigdeal.gumroad.com/. This is about 5x more unique active investors than 2 years ago !!
3. The African VC ecosystem is maturing fast, and a growing cohort of high-quality companies are progressively qualifying for trade sales and IPOs, to follow the first evidence of unicorns seen in the last 12 to 18 months. The importance of the African entrepreneurial community cannot be overstated. With the right funding (and funder), we can create new and innovative ways to overcome longstanding challenges with a community that more than ready to scale and do it for Africa’s sake.
4. Africa has great potential. We have young people who are very optimistic, smart and innovative but sadly enough lack smart capital to start up and mentors to guide them in their start up journeys. Companies like Flutterwave, Opay in Nigeria, Wave in Senegal show us the possibilities that lie in the future for Africa. Startup investing with angel cheques must be encouraged today, tomorrow and in the future with an equity collective model entrusted within a value system that puts trust, accountability and revenue KPIs first.
5. We should all be super optimists and bullish about the African continent and its startup space for 2022 onwards! I have been very active as an entrepreneur and founder, a business angel and an entrepreneur advisor on multiple startups in the continent for the last 10 years and when you see the level of activity, creativity, innovation and investment in tech startups in 2021, you realise that 2022 will be crazy!
6. This startup scene success is demonstrated by the near-daily headlines about African entrepreneurs and startups raising funding from international investors to grow, scale and continue innovating. The most recent example of startup success in Africa is OPay’s Series C fundraise of $400m in a round led by Softbank at a valuation of $2bn. Following Nigeria-based Flutterwave’s $170m Series C funding round earlier in 2021, OPay now joins the exclusive cohort of African unicorns which includes Fawry, Interswitch and Jumia.
7. Africa is seeing a wide breadth and diversity of VC investors from all over the world. Although 40% of investment in African entrepreneurs is through private equity and venture capital, we have seen a lot of interest from large multinationals like Visa, Google and other big international players. Other funders on the rise include the usual suspects such as incubators, accelerators, family offices, angel investors and foundations.
So what is amazing here, is that none of this existed a few years ago. So lets invite more of our wealthy and affluent Batswana to invest in startups as a new asset class.
We keep building!
