Way back in 2017 when TechCrunch Startup Battlefield happened in Kenya and Lori Systems won, the Ecosystem went crazy over how mysterious the company won the competitions, this being based on such statements :“Make of this what you want to, but the issue of needing a white co-founder, especially in Kenya, to open doors and make your startup more palatable for funding from VCs is a topical one and TechCrunch seem to have poured more fuel on this fire.” IAfrikan.
And now this brings us to the conversation who is it that really matters in this Journey ? According to the famous wiki- “Funding is the act of providing financial resources, usually in the form of money, or other values such as effort or time, to finance a need, program, and project, usually by an organization or government.”, but whom are the Funders Funding ? is it the ‘white founders’ of the ‘market system’ or the ‘black founders’ ?
Tricky question indeed but we all have the answers we need basing on how we approach the situation ? if we championed for our own do you think we’d blame the whom and the whose ?
I love Innovation and growth in all aspects but as the Tech society we miss the mark when we only applaud the Funding bit the Ecosystem, this really creating a gap between the journalists and the ecosystem – ‘Knowledge-wise’, This happened Let’s Say yesterday after the Andela Secured its Series E, I think even if some company did it’s expansion Yesterday, it did barely hit the news in the evening.
Wake me up when Tech blogs stop writing only about fundraising. I miss real journalism in tech.
— Moe (@Mochievous) September 29, 2021
This Conversation of the white founders hasn’t erupted for a while till Wave became a unicorn :
Quoting ” There are no African successes, just foreign owned corporations and that is a problem India is handling by adding a foreigners tax fee ” I guess we are still tormented by the fact we were colonized and we need freedom, so deranged and bitter rather than being grateful of the source! “Other people may try to distinguish the entity from the founders, but is that something that Africans in the tech space can afford to do? After all, the founders are the owners, and the bulk of any profits go to them and the place they pay the most taxes, which is likely to be the country whose citizenship they hold. “
On Another Conversation After Andela banked the cheque, was or rather is, does Mr Aboyeji have the hack ? netting two unicorns! indeed I can say on my own the man knows a way around it but that doesn’t mean his ways really worked it out . Mr Aboyeji having Flutter wave and Andela on the limelight or rather those being the limelight of any other Fintech and Talent acquisition companies on the rise. Qouting Techcrunch “The marketplace model is also used in niche regions like Africa, where Andela arguably pioneered tech talent matching. Now, tech talent matching sites — Gebeya, TalentQL, eWorker, GetDev among others — deploy similar tactics but with different business models and operations to pair engineering talent with those needing of them within and outside the continent.
https://twitter.com/iaboyeji/status/1443229696964059142
Do you really think when one makes it the Other really Does ? or there is a specific criteria to follow : Founded Black, Co-Founded white = Investors or ?
So let us not lay the blame on the investors, that they are only interested in mature startups, well as much as its true there are many seed funding accelerators for the startups and remember they also check out the long range journey that your startup will survive before endorsing funds, Our ecosystem is dependent on each other, lets quit the blame game and work towards the goal, as much as we may pitch our ideas on some fraud accelerators who end up stealing ideas creating a loop hole in the region’s ecosystem rather than offering guidance to the startups, These startups need mentors, not thieves, they need partners, not bosses that’s why they end up settling for stand-alone self-help growth rather than go to the hubs who end up picking their inborn startup rather than also checking for the exterior pitchers.
Featured Images Eric Palma Illustration
