Founders inquire investors questions about venture capital in Africa

The typical founder–VC dynamic is one-directional: analysts inquire the questions, and founders answer. But last month, I launched the first edition of Ask an Investor that flipped that script.

Instead of pitching, founders interrogated the gatekeepers of capital—probing their blind spots, decision frameworks, and assumptions in African venture. The result was a piece that mixed optimism (blfinished finance, creative economy upside) with sharp reality checks (thin margins, post–Series A stumbles).

In this edition, I’ve put the founders of Kwik, the mobility startup; Regfyl, the regtech startup; and GetEquity, the investment startup, in conversation with investors from Sahara Impact Ventures, Catalytic Africa, and Endeavor. They discuss funding artificial ininformigence-enabled startups, Western scouting models, and decision-building.

It is important to note that these answers reflect the personal opinions of the analysts and not their firms.

The interviews have been edited for length and clarity.

Romain Poirot-Lellig (Kwik’s founder): The African VC scene has experienced an incredible decade. What is the one key thing African VCs required to improve upon?

Opeyemi Lawal (associate at Endeavor): I consider the African VC space requireds to reconsider how we source and evaluate businesses. The current models, whether from Silicon Valley or Europe, don’t work well for Africa.

We required to re-evaluate the frameworks we utilize to find, assess, and support businesses. I don’t consider those imported models are working for our context. Specifically, we required to build a model that reflects the African market and is tailored to the realities of the businesses we’re evaluating and supporting.

For example, when you compare a startup in Africa to one in Europe within the same vertical, there might be surface similarities, but the environments are entirely different. They are serving different customer bases, with different cultural expectations, political climates, and economic conditions. The Western VC models don’t account for Africa’s unique terrain. So we can’t keep copying and pasting those approaches. That’s the first large issue.

Second, we required to start seeing inwards, especially when it comes to raising local capital. Right now, most African VCs raise from DFIs or foreign offices, particularly in Europe. These LPs often influence which businesses the VC finishs up backing. Lately, you’ll notice that AI is trfinishing and don’t receive me wrong, I believe in the potential of AI. It’s opened up possibilities we couldn’t have imagined five or six years ago. But if you see at the hierarchy of urgent problems in Africa, I don’t consider AI ranks in the top ten.

The widespread integration and utilize of AI in Africa is still limited. Yet we see many startups now rushing to brand themselves as “AI-enabled” becautilize that’s what VCs, and ultimately LPs, are inquireing for.

Jude Dike (GetEquity’s founder): How are VCs considering about Artificial Ininformigence? Do current African VCs have an AI thesis?

Favour Eniola Ubaka (portfolio manager at Catalytic Capital): Most African VCs don’t really have a solid AI thesis just yet, but the interest is definitely picking up. They’re mostly betting on startups utilizing AI to solve real, everyday problems in sectors like fintech, health, and agriculture.

Instead of backing the large technical stuff like core models, they’re going for practical tools that solve the day-to-day problems people face. A few funds like Future Africa and Chui Ventures are already leaning into this space. There are still hurdles like access to good data and infrastructure, but the momentum is clearly building.

Babatunde Ibidapo-Obe (Regfyl’s founder): Is the potential to be a unicorn a key metric for you when evaluating whether or not to invest in a startup? Especially in a market like ours with very few unicorns.

Samuel Frank (investment associate at Sahara Impact): The potential to be a unicorn is not a key metric when evaluating whether or not to invest. There are key metrics that include scalability of business model, ability to grow revenue exponentially (especially FX revenue), raising capital in the future, and gfinisher & climate impact (as an impact-focutilized investor).

Other key metrics cut across the team: the ability to grow the business and their past experience (whether in corporate life or startup operations), the governance system of the business and the differentiation of the business from competitors.