Angels

Investing and raising capital for our dreams

Everyone would love ready access to a pool of resources; and, access to cash especially would be great to live up to their dreams!

In a world where ideas are a dime a dozen, there is an uptake in competent people able to execute almost anywhere in the globalized world access to capital, and more literally cashflow is King.

This Friday, 7 pm GMT Stanbic Incubator Ghana is hosting a Twitter Spaces conversation on Angel Investing, and yours truly with colleagues and friends, will be sharing nuggets of experience (personal and professional, ecosystem-friendly) and tips in navigating what seems to be a skewed pipeline to capital (via angel investing) in Africa and specifically in Ghana.

Questions we are exploring:

What did risk-bearing investing look like in our local communities before they were called angels? What sectors primarily get support from angels in Africa? What sectors traditionally do the winners of funding come from? What are they doing right? What sectors look most promising and where do we validate the practice of angel investment most?

Since Twitter spaces are informal sessions, this promises to be an open-to-share and discuss, and would love to have as many of you who read this join in, vocally or in tweets with your fingers as we share needed information in building the entrepreneurial ecosystem across the African continent I love.

Earlier this month I was invited by Stanbic/Standard Bank Incubator in Ghana for Twitter’s Accra Build Day. The experience during the sessions where I answered questions from being an early and verified adopter of Twitter as a platform to an insider for big tech firms Google, YouTube, and Meta (formerly Facebook). The perspective around user-agency versus the tools employees have as well as the advocacy and policy groups in championing privacy across social media can be humbling. Like any good panel and break-out discussion, the experience left us with even more questions and action items to explore more intentionally.

Could one truly opt out of digital platforms that are ubiquitous and onboard users globally with hard-to-resist free-to-use service?

In which ways could one advocate for personal rights while enjoying global connectivity at the click of a button?

What would Africa-led privacy and agency advocacy groups for use of digital and online platforms Google Search, Twitter Bots, Instagram ads, and search rankings look like? How would we fund and advocate for these in connecting them with sustainable policy practice for the community, national, and regional adoption?

I deeply believe ideas built our world, collaborative discourse sets us up for pooling our resources together and learning to do better and future-cast better, and yet are we engaged in the build of digital and digital transformation, architecture, rules-of-engagement, and digital currency personally, professionally and as a collective on the continent? My suspicions are sobering. And yet, I’m optimistic the building of Africa We Want has to be intentional and we must curate the exciting feature activation as well as ask the uncomfortable but who has the African user’s interest at heart questions.

My sentiments on ecosystems that are intentional and fit-for-purpose in Africa were reinforced by a global programs and operations team and realizing how little of our divvied funding gets t the ground of our community, our tech leaders, and entrepreneurs in comparison to our counterparts in other Global South countries and predictably the rest of the world. Africa receives, below-average support, resources, in recognition, and resource support time and again with a bigger ask of “impact” across our population demographic. In summary, Africa usually gets the least funding and support from the biggest wealthiest companies for play on the continent. Some of the factors, by my estimation, are external (stereotypical and perceptions-biased) and to an extent are also self-inflicted with our own self-organizing and advocacy for play-in-Africa not as coordinated or demanding in negotiating reciprocal value as can be. I have been thinking deeply about this for a while and shared the same at Davos here, and my follow-up thought-piece about Respect is Reciprocal on Medium here. Subsequently, I will be sharing solutions-oriented ideas on amplifying our voice, celebrating community sheroes, and making & holding space for the next generation of innovators while letting go of the battles, alas, we may not be best-equipped to win at this time.

“Whatever good things we build end up building us.” - Jim Rohn

Be well, be safe, be loved.

p.s. You may have enjoyed our earlier Q1 & Q2 installment of Spaces, we look forward to featuring new guests and fostering meaningful conversations online and in-person (post-Covid lockdown regulations whew 😅) soon; for guest recommendations please share this link widely here.

Originally published to Unpacking Africa newsletter’s 15,000 + subscribers on July 21, 2022.