Silicon Valley venture investor Chamath Palihapitiya, whose bets on “blank check” acquisition companies earned him the nickname of “King of SPACs” has announced he will be making his maiden visit to Africa in December 2021.
While speaking on the All-In Podcast show which features Venture Capital industry veterans like Jason Calacanis, David Sacks and David Friedberg, Chamath, who is also the minority owner of the Golden State Warriors said that he will be visiting Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana and a couple of other African countries.
During his trip, Chamath will be hosting a couple of fireside chats with the startup and investing community.
Chamath Palihapitiya’s Portfolio Companies in Africa
The 45-year-old former Facebook executive is already an active investor in the continent having led Africa’s Talking‘s series A $8.6 million funding round in 2018. Africa’s Talking is a Kenyan based enterprise software company that provides telecommunication infrastructure via APIs targeting software developers across the continent.
Additionally, Palihapitiya’s Social Capital is also an investor in Ajua (formerly mSurvey), a Kenyan consumer experience platform for businesses in Africa. Social Capital participated in Ajua’s $3.5 million in Series A round of funding to help it in expanding to more African countries.
Social Capital has two portfolio companies in West Africa mPharma and Tizeti. mPharma is a Ghanaian health tech startup that manages prescription drug inventory for pharmacies and their suppliers. On the other hand, Nigeria’s Tizeti is leveraging the large wireless capacity available with Wi-fi and plummeting cost of solar panels to create a low CAPEX/OPEX network of owned & operated towers to offer disruptive, customer-friendly pricing for unlimited internet service right across Africa.
