For 5 consecutive editions of Ask an Investor, we’ve requested Africa-focused buyers the identical core questions: how can native capital fund the continent’s startups, how do these backers add worth, and what makes cash?

This week, our recap of the previous 5 episodes pulls hard-won classes from each interview: Marge Ntambi (Benue Capital), Axel Peyriere (serial angel & founder), Fisayo Durojaye (Immerse VC), Biola Alabi (Delta 40/angel syndicates), and Alexandre Lazarow (Fluent Ventures).

The significance of native capital and native information 

When Uganda-based Benue Capital invited dozens of Kampala high-net-worth people (HNWIs) to a closed-door summit, Ntambi’s staff began with a blunt provocation: “Each missed Sequence A is another person’s yield farm.” 

She then pulled up a easy bar chart exhibiting how a $100k cheque into Ugandan startups may already be price 10× after a few years. “True ecosystem possession begins with native funding,” she advised TechCabal. 

Ntambi’s bigger thesis is that native capital shouldn’t be charity however danger arbitrage. A Kampala landlord almost certainly has details about land registries, boda site visitors patterns, and parish-level politics {that a} Palo Alto affiliate would possibly by no means purchase rapidly sufficient to cost. That information compresses uncertainty, and native buyers, if correctly organised, can purchase the identical enterprise upside at a significant low cost as a result of they’ll diligence sooner and assist higher. 

Peyriere echoed the purpose from an operator’s chair. After 14 years writing cheques throughout Africa and Asia as an angel investor, he backs solely sectors he has operated in: mobility and marketplaces. His wins—Julaya, Termii, Gray—grew out of ache factors he has lived by means of. “The perfect options are constructed floor up for native realities,” he mentioned. 

By staying in sectors he’s accustomed to, he avoids the vacationer entice Lazarow warns about: importing a Valley guidelines into markets that don’t care about Valley heuristics.

For Immerse VC’s Durojaye, native area mastery is his first filter; it let him spot Shuttlers and OnePort early and stroll away from financial-inclusion pitches that made folks obtain apps. “If I do know extra about your trade than you do, I’m out.”

Biola Alabi’s journey underscores the identical psychology. Her first cheque—into Huge Cabal Media—was tiny by immediately’s requirements, however it snowballed as a result of she paired money with crisis-time mentorship. 

Native perception as a aggressive moat

Every investor gave a case the place native context, not capital, was decisive. Durojaye solely invested in Shuttlers as a result of he had spent years in yellow buses and BRT queues. When a structured commuter-bus platform was pitched, he immediately noticed the market others dismissed.

Lazarow, however, recognised OffBusiness’s Indian mannequin however solely funded Matta after its founders proved they may underwrite credit score in naira with out bureau information, one thing a Brazilian or US staff couldn’t replicate.

Designing exits in a market quick on IPOs

Each investor acknowledged an uncomfortable reality: Africa nonetheless lacks deep public-market or personal fairness demand for $200 million tech corporations. They supplied 3 ways to generate returns, like secondaries, exit-first deal design, and valuation self-discipline. 

Peyriere, Durojaye, and Alabi have every bought parts or all of their positions, generally grudgingly, when later-stage buyers needed cleaner caps or once they needed to exit from their funding. These partial exits returned capital to LPs and angels with out strangling upside. Their guidelines of thumb: if a secondary provides 5–10X on an early cheque, take a minimum of some chips off; bake secondaries into time period sheets: 10–15% of any Sequence B or C may be allotted to liquidity for earlier holders; maintain founders above a threshold stake post-secondary. 

Lazarow is not going to enter a deal except a minimum of one in every of three paths feels real looking immediately: a strategic acquirer checklist with precedent multiples, native or regional personal fairness buyout urge for food, or an energetic secondary market with low cost parameters understood.

Ntambi pushes founders to arrange governance artefacts—information room hygiene, board minutes, clear choice swimming pools—from the seed spherical. “Exit blockers seed themselves at incorporation,” she warned.

Durojaye’s harshest critique: funds marking corporations at $100 million at Sequence A in markets the place banks or telcos hardly ever pay over $40 million. The inevitable down-round kills morale and dilutes everybody. 

What value-add seems like when money is just 50% of the necessity

Throughout all 5 conversations, value-add meant time-consuming, sleeves-rolled work: cap desk surgical procedure, hiring CFOs, co-founder matchmaking, and regulatory hand-holding. That is what typically separates a great investor from an important investor. 

At Benue Capital, the value-add is geared in the direction of native buyers because the agency walks HNWIs by means of actual exit case research like Asaak and SafeBoda and provides co-investment autos so first-timers be taught with out an excessive amount of danger.

Peyriere, however, has an operator hotline for his portfolio startups the place he provides recommendation, brokers heat intros to Sequence A buyers, and pressure-tests founders’ market technique utilizing his AUTO24 playbook. 

Alabi operates as a disaster supervisor and syndicate shepherd. She helped engineer Huge Cabal Media’s CEO transition, and in different offers, she buildings paperwork, mediates disputes, and as soon as even helped an angel liquidate their funding to deal with mid-life emergencies. 

The frequent thread throughout these six tales is that buyers insist that Africa’s greatest aggressive benefit is context-specific execution. “If we would like startups fixing issues that matter to African communities, we’d like African buyers on the desk,” Ntambi mentioned. Native cash brings endurance and accountability, native information turns international playbooks into revenue, and regionally engineered exits recycle money again into the following cohort of startups.