iAfrica 2 months ago 2 min read
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East African venture advisory firm Kinyungu Ventures has published a white paper detailing what it says is a “misalignment” between traditional venture capital models and the African market. The white paper, entitled “Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa”, finds there are “multiple mismatches” between key characteristics of Silicon Valley venture capital and African markets, which influence how startups and funds function as well as what results they expect and produce. The paper includes feedback from 100 pan-African founders, investors, and LPs across 15 African countries, and recommends investment structures and approaches tailored to African operating conditions, and a broadening of approaches to institutional investment on the continent. Findings show that African mark
WHERE IS FIBRE?
Despite being the pioneers in the Nigerian property tech space, Fibre has had a silent couple of weeks. On an office Slack channel last year, Lanre even asked, “what’s happening with Fibre?”
It seemed like a good story angle so I reached out to the company’s Director of Operations, Munachi Ogbonna and we had an interesting conversation. He said Fibre’s silence is intentional because they’re working on some changes to the business.
Some of these changes are from constructive feedback they got from customers. He spoke frankly about some of the challenges involved in running a property tech business. So, I figured, why not turn it into a holistic conversation?
18 January, 2021. Nairobi, Kenya. East African venture advisory firm, Kinyungu Ventures has published a white paper Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa that has found that there continues to be a wide misalignment between traditional venture capital models and the African market.
January 19, 2021
One of the long-running tensions in the African startup investment ecosystem has been whether the Silicon Valley funding model, which seems to have been transferred wholesale to Africa’s very diverse and different tech hubs, is right for the continent’s tech hubs at this stage in their development.
With the disproportionate influence of Silicon Valley investment on Africa’s top tech hubs in Lagos, Nairobi and Cape Town, this debate isn’t going away anytime soon. And even where there are local tech investors many have adopted the expectations of their better funded American counterparts.
A new white paper,
African startup investment needs "a more measured perspective that significant, profitable opportunities exist despite, and arguably because, of the challenges."