How a movement to create a community of Founders, Builders, Investors and Ecosystem Builders of Tech in Africa in New York was sparked 💥.
It was family that drove my move to NYC last year but its energy and dynamism has completely blown me away. I’m a big fan of cross-emerging market learning so it’s totally fitting that this was a little inspired by my friends working to build Latin America. NYC is home to an exploding LATAM VC community — my buddy Miguel Amarza (GP, GilgameshVC) has a crew here he brings together and others like Kate Kiewel’s community Khora organising socials that bring together builders, investors, founders all creating the future of tech in LATAM.
There must be an African VC community too! I asked all of the folks I knew who were based here which events or meet-up groups that founders and investors in tech in Africa hit up — there was nothing. I spoke with Steven at Lateral Frontiers, Chris at Timon Capital, Aadil at Musha Ventures and Nnena (who’s loss I’m still processing but her strength and empathy continues to inspire me every day) at Otundi. But it wasn’t until I shared this with Samantha at the Fintech Collective in Jan 2022 — did this get that final push “What’s the worse that can happen, it’s just drinks with the 6 of us? We’ve gotta do it.”
We wanted this to also be a platform for founders from Africa coming through New York to quickly plug into and meet others building and investing in tech on the continent — so for our very first monthly edition in March 2022 we had the privilege of a closed door industry briefing on logistics in Ghana from Kwaku, Co-Founder and CEO at Swoove and on remittances from the US into Africa from David and Hempstone, Co-Founders of Wayapay.
We weren’t sure who would show up, but friends invited friends and by the time we got to our long table at the brooklyn brewery we were 20+ strong on Day 1!
Since then we’ve been at it every month, picking a new spot, switching up the format. Since March, in just 6 months our community of 80+ has come together to hosted more 15+ founders who were passing through New York, had surprise guests like Dario from Briter Bridges and Justin from The Flip join us as well!
It’s also pretty crazy thinking back at how we’ve grown purely by 1 degree referrals, and that we’ve coordinated all these meet-ups through the magic of WhatsApp.
Samantha and I couldn’t be more grateful to the community for their energy and their generosity in supporting each other!
Now that we’ve wrapped up our 6 month test run, what’s next? We’re still working that out 🙈. But here’s what we do know:
- The electricity ⚡️ in each meet-up is incredible, everyone is reconnecting with old friends and meeting new faces
- We are united in our desire to make investing in and building in Africa more mainstream in the world
- We are united in wanting to democratise and drive access to capital, talent and networks to successfully build on the continent
- We are an open, supportive and collaborative community that wants to support each other to succeed
If this sounds like your jam — join us at our next monthly get together or apply to join the community for regular updates on what we’re up to! We’re now live on www.africatech.live (pun 100% intended).
If you know a founder passing through NY who’d like to share his / her insights into a sector or an opportunity — just shout! We’ll make it happen.
If you know an investor who’s curious about deploying more capital into Africa and wants to meet more founders, investors and builders — invite them along to our next huddle!
