Nigerian serial techpreneur, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, began 2020 by announcing the launch of an early-stage investment fund for African entrepreneurs called the Future Africa Fund.
The businessman, who co-founded Andela and Flutterwave before announcing a surprising retirement in 2018, said the Future Africa Fund would fund twenty innovative African startups with the sum of $50, 000 every year. Only startups solving real and socially relevant problems will qualify to benefit from the fund.
Making the announcement via a lengthy article that was published on LinkedIn earlier this month, Aboyeji further disclosed that the Future Africa Fund would do more than just fund early-stage businesses. Instead, it will also provide them with their early customers as well as avail them access to a “vast network of talent”.
In the same vein, Aboyeji and his team will provide coaching/mentorship opportunities for entrepreneurs, as well as build a community where conversations and actions will be taken towards building Africa’s future.
As Aboyeji emphasised, the decision to begin funding African businesses was borne out of the need to back-up already existing conversations about Africa’s development with meaningful action. After all, it is one thing to merely talk about the many problems plaguing the African continent such as unemployment and public health crisis, and another thing to actually take action towards solving these problems.
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Please note that the Fund is an angel fund solely dedicated to the actualisation of the purpose highlighted above. Now, bearing in mind that inadequate access to funding is one of the biggest challenges faced by entrepreneurs everywhere in the world, this development could not be more than welcomed.
The Future Africa Fund has Iyinoluwa Aboyeji and Nadayar Enegesi as the “founding limited partners”. Interestingly, the two co-founded Andela which has gone on to become a major player in the African and global Information Technology space.
Aboyeji also announced that Chuba Ezekwesili has joined the team as a Co-founder. According to him, Ezekwesili has been instrumental over the last year in helping to fashion-out the intricacies of how the Fund would work. In the meantime, other members of the team would be announced shortly, he said.
You may read Aboyeji’s LinkedIn article here.
