54 Collective, formerly Founders Factory Africa, is hosting its second live African Pre-Seed Podcast at the Capital Club East Africa, Nairobi to unpack the topic “Behind the Scenes of Capital Funding: What early-stage founders in Africa need the most.”
The podcast will feature Steve Biko, Co-founder and CEO of Zanifu; Djiba Diallo, Senior Fintech Advisor at Ecobank; and Andrea Muforo, Partner TLcom; hosted by Loraine Achar, Investment Manager at 54 Collective and moderator of the African pre-seed podcast.
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4:30pm: Live podcast recording ends
“How do you go about deciding the sweet spot between a large organisation that has to protect itself and not slowing down the startup too much so that each party is happy with the risk its taking on?” –Adam Wakefield, 54 Collective
“Some sectors command higher valuation than others because of the scalability” –Andrea Muforo
“A founder once told me that it’s important. Whether equity or debt, there’s money, but what’s hard to find is founders.” –Steve Biko
“Two things: what are your alternatives, and where in the world are you located?” –Steve Biko
“How do we come up with a benchmark figure for valuation so that when someone offers you less then its a bad deal?” –Chris, Co-founder of a health tech.
4:16 pm
“The third question is the investment itself. If I invest I have to believe that the valuation is fair.” –Andrea Muforo
What is the business model that the company is executing? Then you look at the team as well. Ideas are a dime a dozen, but its the team that makes a difference.” –Andrea Muforo
“We look at the markets, the size, the competitors, the unit economies and such,” –Andrea Muforo
“Between English and French-speaking countries there are a lot of disparities on policies and policy implementation,” –Audience member.
“Once you take venture capital then there are realities you have to deal with.” –Steve Biko
4:00 pm
“We try to create a link between what we have and what the fintech is bringing in,”- Djiba Diallo
“What kind of companies/startups is Ecobank looking to engage with? –Lorraine Achar
“We have thousands of applicants and its difficult to go through all of them. So we have different steps.” –Djiba Diallo
“We are not a VC,” –Djiba Diallo
“My role at Ecobank is to set strategy and facilitate strategy with fintechs in general,” –Djiba Diallo.
3:51pm:
“The beneficiaries of our platform have to pay a higher price. First you give SMEs at a higher price and then you work on bringing that cost down.” –Steve Biko.
“We started by solving the same problem for ourselves that we are solving for SMEs because we had to borrow money from family and friends. We started there and then got capital from a family office and then from a debt investor,” –Steve Biko
“We are solving the US$ 300bn access to finance problem for SMEs. We are in Kenya, we started the business in 2018 and we are currently in the Series A level,” –Steve Biko
3:45pm:
“We ask for a board seat when we invest,” Andrea Muforo, “If we leverage the networks of our partners to support entrepreneurs. We are both an advisor and a connector for the entrepreneur.”
“Not every business is a venture business.” –Andrea Muforo.
“TLCom is a VC fund that’s been around the continent for about a decade. Our sweet spot is Seed and Series A, and we like to invest US$1-3 million.”- Andrea Muforo.
3:40pm: Since 2018, 54 Collective has invested in over 70 companies.”-Lorraine Achar
