The Baobab Network invests in 5 new start-ups across Africa

We are so excited to announce that we recently onboarded 5 new start-ups into our portfolio in our very first cohort delivery of the accelerator programme! Between 2019 and 2021, we have invested in 20 tech start-ups across 10 African markets, with over $25 million USD in follow-on funding from our angel and investor network.

In addition to the $25,000 USD funding, we also provide a 3-month acceleration programme, broken up into 2 weeks of intensive, full-time sessions, followed by 10 weeks of support delivered by our crack team of venture partners, alongside external mentors and experts.

In the past, we have also supported the portfolio companies to secure follow-on funding, and have so far seen 2 exits: Mangwee, a Zimbabwean FinTech was acquired by Ghana’s Zeepay, and Shago Payments, a Nigerian payments platform, was acquired by fellow Baobab Network company, Alerzo, that closed a $10.5 million Series A last year and is currently raising a Series B round at x valuation.

In line with our sector- and country-agnostic thesis, the very first cohort featured 5 companies from 3 countries in exciting sectors: Legal/Regulatory, FinTech, HR-Tech and HR analytics. 

This cohort brings our portfolio to a total of 25 amazing start-ups across 11 countries since we launched our accelerator programme in 2019. 

 

Meet the start-ups

In the first-ever cohort for The Baobab Network, we are excited to  welcome these 5 African start-ups:

• Lendha, a FinTech providing quick loans to Nigeria’s retailers, freelancers and SMEs. 
• Mighty Finance is a credit facility dedicated to supporting women-led businesses in Zambia. 
• Opus Analytics, a SaaS company using AI to help businesses become smarter by combining the power of their people data to make data-driven decisions, was also selected for the first cohort.
• Goodtalent is a Lagos-based HR-Tech supporting tech start-ups worldwide to hire quality software engineers via a database and proprietary assessment and testing. 
• Sidebrief is a Regulations/Legal company enabling founders across Africa to form and incorporate their companies with ease in any country.

Interested in seeing the founders and their products in action? Register now for the demo day on 1st July 2022.

Speaking on TBN’s new cohort approach to investing, Arthur Chupeau, Head of Ventures at TBN, said that “We felt now was the right time to launch our cohort investment model, as the quality of companies that we see in our pipeline has improved dramatically since we first started investing in 2019.

“We now see over 1500 applicants each year, and in the past 24 months we’ve processed applications from companies in more than 50 African countries – so our brand reach these days is huge. Our goal is to be the preferred partner for every entrepreneur in Africa that wants to raise their first cheque” he went on to say.

 

Meet the founders

 

The founders behind these 5 new African solutions come with a breadth of experience in their fields. Sidebrief is led by an amazing team of lawyers well-versed in tax, regulations and compliance: Eunice, Abdulwaheed, and Usman, based in Washington DC, Nigeria and Kenya respectively. The three launched Sidebrief after having come across businesses that struggle to start while working as lawyers in the VC and policy space.

Goodtalent is led by Jimmy Braimah, the only solo founder of the cohort, who hails from Lagos but is currently based in the Uk and has worked in recruitment for 15 years.

The team at Opus Analytics also boast several years in the HR space, with co-founders Somaya, who spent nearly 20 years in HR with Microsoft, Sherif, who boasts over 2 decades in HR and operations, and Basil, their product development wiz. 

The Lendha team is headed by co-founders Tunji and Peter who have backgrounds in credit management and software development respectively, currently working out of Lagos, Nigeria. Both are passionate about bridging the finance gap around them.

Mighty Finance is the brainchild of Vwanganji and Chiloba, who bring their expertise in business and desire to have a positive social impact, to the Zambian lending space.

 Commenting on TBN’s model, Wanjiku Kimani, a Venture Partner at TBN, said that “alongside our funding, we see our core role as an accelerator as being to help founders navigate those tough early months of scaling their business; getting to product market fit, iterating their product and building revenue traction. We work closely with founders to prepare them for a bigger seed round within 6-12 months of joining us”.

 “Our permanent capital structure allows us to make very long commitments to the entrepreneurs that we back” said Christine Namara, a Venture Partner at TBN. “In the past three years, we’ve built a community of more than 1500 co-investors around the world who actively look to support and back our portfolio as they come through the accelerator”, she added. 

 Applications are now open for TBN’s next cohort which kicks off in June 2022. Any founders interested can apply online at thebaobabnetwork.com/apply.