Pardon Makumbe, co-founder and managing partner of CRE Venture Capital
When you look at raising capital in Africa, what can we see in the current landscape?
Our continent is a big place made up of regional ecosystems, each with its own unique personality and dynamism. The regions we know the best are South of the Sahara – Southern Africa, West Africa, East Africa.
In Southern Africa, South Africa is the obvious juggernaut. The story of South Africa’s early-stage technology entrepreneurship and venture capital ecosystem can be traced back to Mark Shuttleworth building Thawte and selling it to Verisign for $575m in 1999, at the age of 26. Following that staggering success, Shuttleworth established HBD Venture Capital (Here Be Dragons). You can connect several dots to that genesis and ultimately trace an arc to where we are today.