Kurious K

This episode features Gbolade Emmanuel who is the CEO at Termii, headquartered in California and a Y Combinator Alumni W20.

Termii is a communications platform (CPaaS) that allows African businesses to send messages to anyone across SMS, email, voice and instant messaging channels. 

In this episode, we discussed

The story of founding Termii

How Termii got into YC

Why Emmanuel  started Aidi.africa

The essence of building comms infrastructure for African Startups and more.

This episode features Francis Sani  who is the Principal at Magic Fund

MAGIC Fund is a $30M early-stage venture capital fund built by founders for founders. The fund has backed 70+ tech startups around the world including Bamboo Carrot, Mono, Oxygen, and many more.

In this episode, we discussed Francis' journey getting into the innovation ecosystem and transitioning to a Venture Capital role.

-Magic fund's investment thesis, investment size and deal structure.

-The range of equity Magic fund aim for in a priced round.

- How they find/ source investment deals.

-How long it takes to make an investment decision

-Reporting requirements from startups after investments

Most interestingly we discussed why Francis sold all my stuff and left Lagos to become a digital nomad.

Check out Francis's adventures here: https://mimh.substack.com/p/1-month-a-nomad-a-two-edged-sword?s=r 

Learn more about Magic fund here: www.magic.fund

Edwin's experience cut across building startups and supporting new ventures. He is currently the country manager at Eko Innovation Centre (EIC), where he is responsible for managing various innovation programs and startup portfolios.

Edwin & I  have a history of working together as entrepreneurs at Passion incubator so  It's great to have him on the show as we discussed his entrepreneurship background, lessons learnt building e-Medrep, his fundraising story, work at Eko Innovation centre and he also made a special announcement for one of EIC’s new program.

My friends from Rad 5 Tech Hub reached out to me to speak to entrepreneurs in their startup club. John and Igwe  founded the hub in 2017 and they have been working tirelessly to grow the startup ecosystem in Aba ( South East Nigeria). 

This week, I decided to share the presentation  on my podcast. I hope you enjoy it. 

To learn more about Rad 5Tech hub visit  https://rad5.com.ng/

This episode features Temitope Babatunde Ekundayo who is CEO at  Printivo | Co-Founder at Getequity.io

We discussed his transition from Printivo to GetEquity which  is a company that is challenging the status quo of startup financing and venture capital. Over $400,000 USD has been raised on the platform.

We discuss his :

Education background.

Starting his consulting business.

Story around joining Printivo founding team.

Market product fit thesis for building startups.

Starting GetEquity and it’s business model.

This podcast episode should not be considered as an offer or solicitation to sell, buy or subscribe to any financial instruments or regarded as investment advice.

I spoke about some interesting quotes I have compiled for some years.

Eunice Ajim (Cameroonian-American Tech Entrepreneur) is the founding partner of Ajim capital- a $10 million fund set to invest in African Tech Startups.  Eunice has been a 2x tech founder and an executive having spent early years of her career with Apple & later leading a $10M+ revenue tech startup.  

The fund provides checks of $25,000- $125,000 to pre-seed and seed tech enabled companies across Africa. 

In the episode we discuss her background as an international student from Cameroon to USA.

Career at Apple, her struggling startup and pivot, fundraising journey, Ajim's investment thesis and more.

To learn more about Ajim Capital visit - www.ajimcapital.com

This episode feature Daniel Bloch who has spent the last nine years building blockchain solutions.

Daniel is currently the CEO of Seso Global, Africa’s property super app that enables secure transaction in property management platform leveraging blockchain. Before Seso, he has co founded a cryptocurrency exchange platform and launched a blockchain Education Network, a nonprofit that provides Blockchain educational initiatives at Universities in over ten countries worldwide.

Seso Global was launched in 2017 after series of iterations & has raised 1 million USD. 

Links to Check: 

Africa Prop-tech Pitch Series event here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxmVNcAqXC8 

Building Web App with no code -  https://bubble.io/

In 2014 Ayo Dawodu hosted the first lean startup Machine workshop in Africa. Ayo is not just an ecosystem builder, he founded Loystar in 2016 to help businesses build loyalty, not just sell.

In this conversation we discuss lean startup methodology, starting out Loystar, fundraising, adoption of loyalty system by businesses, competition and challenges he has faced building loystar.

Recommended Book:

Lean Startup Methodology by Eric Ries

The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win by Steve Blank

Globally, the trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals is worth up to $200bn.

Over 100,000 people die annually in Africa as a result of counterfeit anti malaria drugs based on report from World health Organization. Dare Odumade is building Chekkit to solve this problem. Chekkit is not just an anti counterfeit technology, his platform is also a serialization and consumer intelligence platform.

Chekkit specializes in developing software for food, beverage and medicine distribution, tracking  & consumer intelligence through anti-fake  services which makes physical product smart and traceable across the supply chain both offline and online.

Dare has been a 3x founder and Chekkit has raised over $600k  in equity and grants financing.  

In this episode we discussed:

His past ventures, key Lessons and mistakes starting out 

How Chekkit is using blockchain technology to solve counterfeiting 

How anti-counterfeiting activities can deepened with government policies

Customer acquisition & Fundraising 

Future plans for Chekkit and more