WHERE’S THE FUNDING?

WHERE’S THE FUNDING?

By WTF (Where Is The Funding?!) PodcastBusinessEntrepreneurship
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WHERE’S THE FUNDING? episodes

  • One of Africa's Top Investors is Backing Founders Turning Africa’s Biggest Challenges into Global Businesses with Adenike Sheriff S2 Ep.15

    Adenike Sheriff is a VC investor, Co-founder, and Principal at Future Africa, a platform that provides capital, coaching, and community for mission-driven innovators building an African Future where purpose and prosperity are within everyones reach. Future Africa is helping early-stage entrepreneurs solve some of Africas most pressing problems. Other co-founders include Iyinola Aboyeji, co-founder of Flutterwave (Fintech company), and Andela (a tech talent sourcing company).

    Key interview highlights:

    • Over 3.5 million dollars have been deployed to companies through the fund since March of 2020. 20 companies are presented within a year to members of the collective and if they are interested in a company they can invest via a special purpose vehicle.
    • The Future Africa Fund enables limited partners to get diversified returns without having to take on deal-specific risk.
    • Limited partners can commit a minimum of $25,000 per quarter and gain pro-rata exposure to all investments Future Africa participates in.
    • Do not approach VC for funding if you are not prepared.
    • VC funding isnt the only way to raise funding for your business.

      • Glossary:

      Secondaries: Secondary investments are primarily purchases of funds that are three to seven years old with existing underlying portfolio companies. Sales are often driven by an investor's need for liquidity or an active approach in managing their private equity portfolio.

      Limited partners: In the context of private equity, a limited partner (or LP) is a third-party investor in a private equity fund. They are passive investors with the income and expenses flowing directly to their hands to be taxed in the year when they accrue.

      Special Purpose Vehicle: An SPV is created as a separate company with its own balance sheet. It may be used to undertake a risky venture while reducing any negative financial impact upon the parent company and its investors.

      Thanks for joining us for another episode of the WTF podcast. We would love your feedback on the show and how we could improve so email us with your feedback.

      Guest/sponsorship request: If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

      Where to find us: Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us grow: Please subscribe, stream, or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

      Follow me on LinkedIn: Michelle J. McKenzie

      Join us for the next episode!

      45 min
    • With Limited Funding This Young Kenyan Launched an Ed-tech Startup that is Transforming Kenyan Education with Kiko Muuo S2 Ep.14

      Kiko founded Angaza Elimu as an inspiration on his personal education journey. Having gone through the same education system he has a clear understanding of the first-hand challenges that exist for young Kenyans and he is committed to addressing the challenges by implementing innovative ways of learning and teaching

      Key interview highlights:

      • Ed-tech only received 4.3% of the $305 million in investor funding that went to Kenya last year mostly to fintech, e-commerce, and health-tech.
      • COVID and the demand for online learning platforms caused an increase in demand but also an increase in cost to service the spike in demand.
      • Grant funding ($129K) has supported the company to build an MVP and launch to present.
      • The current deficit of $700K to meet the needs of current customers.
      • More funding goes to ex-pat founders in Kenya from foreign investors than to local Kenyan founders.

        • Guest Contact: Kiko Muuo on LinkedIn.

        Thanks for joining us for another episode of the WTF podcast. We would love your feedback on the show and how we could improve so email us with your feedback.

        Guest/sponsorship request: If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

        Where to find us: Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

        Help us grow: Please subscribe, stream, or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

        Follow me on LinkedIn: Michelle J. McKenzie Join us for the next episode!

        30 min
      • Real Estate Investor Teaches People How to Buy Vacant Land With No Financing with Jantzen Young S2 Ep.13

        Jantzen Young is a real estate expert with a passion for helping investors build businesses that promote time freedom and financial stability. Jantzen spent 14 years in financial services traveling the country teaching thousands of clients how to adopt technology to optimize, digitize and grow their advisory businesses. While she watched her colleagues flourish, she lacked that financial security in her own life. Thats when Jantzen discovered the power of passive income. Once she did, she grew her rental portfolio from 1 to 6 in only 60 days.

        When a lack of capital halted her expansion, she turned to selling vacant land and completed 31 land deals in 14 months all while working full-time. With experience in multifamily and commercial real estate along with vacant land, Jantzen now focuses on wholesaling and owner-financing high-value land; and putting her capital to work with transactional funding, bridge loans, and joint venture partnerships.

        Key interview highlights:

        • Land flipping is more profitable than house flipping!
        • You dont need bank financing to flip land!
        • Land flipping can be done remotely with Google Earth, unlike with a house, you dont need to physically see land to buy it!
        • Call the County office where you are buying the land to get all of the due diligence about the land before purchasing it.
        • Visit the Fish and Wildlife Service (fws.gov) a U.S. government website for land maps all over the country.

          • Things to look out for when buying land:

          • Ensure that no endangered animals inhabit the land or you will not be able to develop and that has endangered species on it.
          • If you are in the U.S. Midwest, ensure that the land you are buying has water rights to rivers or other water sources.
          • If you are buying land in a mountainous area, make sure that the land is buildable and not on a slope.

            • CONNECT WITH JANTZEN:

            • www.FlippingWithoutRehab.com
            • Facebook: /ThePlotSquad
            • Linked In: /in/FlippingWithoutRehab
            • Tick Tock: @FlippingWithoutRehab

              • Guest/sponsorship request: If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

              Help us grow: Please SUBSCRIBE, stream, or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

              Follow me on LinkedIn: Michelle J. McKenzie

              43 min
            • These Angel Investors Created are Investing in African Women Building Profitable and Scalable Businesses with Torera Abiola and Aysha Tegally S2 Ep.12

              Aysha Tegally and Torera (Tori) Abiola are the co-founders of Future Females Invest. Both Aysha and Tori came together around the lack of access to finance for African female founders. In 2019 Future Females Invest merged with Toris WOWe (Women of West Africa Entrepreneurs) to become truly Pan-African; financially empowering and enabling African female founders. Future Females Invest is changing systems by providing consultancy, training, access to investment and markets, ecosystem support to African women entrepreneurs, investors, NGOs, and gender empowerment advocates in public and private sector organizations.

              Key interview highlights:

              • Mentorship is nice but women need access to capital to complement that in order for them to make the financial investments needed to grow their business
              • Women themselves can act as barriers to accessing investment by not always having the confidence to ask for what they want or feel the need to over-prepare before they make an ask compared to their male counterparts.
              • To improve the ecosystem for more women to be able to access capital systems change is needed to have more women in decision-making roles such as women on the Boards of funds and in C-suites and senior positions are banks where decisions are made also as investors.
              • Women Angel Investors have a unique role to play by investing in more business sectors where you tend to find more women entrepreneurs such as in the beauty industry and the baby market.

                • Guest Social Media: Torera Abiola and Aysha Tegally

                Thanks for joining us for another episode of the WTF podcast.

                If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

                Where to find us: Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

                Help us grow: Please subscribe, stream, or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

                Social Media:

                Follow the WTF podcast on Instagram. Follow Michelle on LinkedIn:

                Michelle J. McKenzie

                Join us for the next episode!

                43 min
              • Entrepreneur Helps Women Producers Connect to Markets and Increase Incomes with Comfort Adjahoe-Jennings S2 Ep.11

                Comfort Adjahoe-Jennings is an entrepreneur in Ghana and CEO of the fair trade social enterprise, Ele Agbe Co. that works with shea butter producers and recycled glass bead jewelry artisans to find markets for their products. Ele Agbe produces a variety of body creams, soaps, lotion bars, body oils, and lip balms from shea butter that are exported to the US, UK, Canadian and Japanese markets. Comfort is also the President of the African Women's Entrepreneurship Program, (AWEP) West Africa Region platform and the immediate past President of Africa Women's Entrepreneurship Program, Ghana Chapter.

                Key interview highlights:

                • Supporting women (especially at the grassroots) is key in every aspect because women invest to make sure that their families are supported.
                • AWEPGhana has 100 members composed of professional women and entrepreneurs who work with other women to build their capacity. AWEP is in 13 countries across the West Africa region. Marketing and packaging are major challenges to product-based entrepreneurs in Africa. Local solutions are needed to solve the quality packaging problem.
                • The certification (organic, fair trade, etc.) process for entering international markets is also a major challenge. Financing qualification criteria are often a barrier to women accessing business financing. Quality work or product speaks for itself and brings you more customers.

                  • Thanks for joining us for another episode of the WTF podcast. We would love your feedback on the show and how we could improve so please complete this short survey.

                  Guest/sponsorship request: If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

                  Where to find us: Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Help us grow: Please subscribe, stream, or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

                  Guest Social Media: Follow Comfort on LinkedIn Social Media: Follow the WTF podcast on Instagram. Follow hosts on LinkedIn: Michelle J. McKenzie Join us for the next episode!

                  41 min
                • Young Ghanaian Engineer Designed a Machine That Helps Rural Farmers + Keeps Students In Classrooms with Jeffrey Appiagyei S2 Ep.10

                  Jeffrey Boakye Appiagyei is a young Ghanaian agriculture and biosystems engineer, ag-tech entrepreneur, and co-founder of SayeTech an agricultural manufacturing company in Ghana. As a student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana, he developed his design and fabrication skills that he applied to portable soybean threshers, solar evaporative cooling units for fruits and vegetables, and vibrating seed cleaners. During his youth service as an elementary teacher in a rural community in Northern Ghana, he noticed student absenteeism was high during the harvest season when parents usually remove children from class time to help with the harvest. His solution to the problem was to use his technical design skills with his co-founder to make machines that help farmers with post-harvest processing, improve post-harvest losses and help students stay in school throughout the school year.

                  Key interview highlights:

                  • Necessity IS the mother of invention, at least in the SAYeTECH case. The need to reduce school attrition rates for students in Northern Ghana during the harvest season led Jeffrey and his co-founder to build local mechanized solutions placed in rural areas to help reduce drudgery for smallholder farmers and their families. A byproduct of the SAYeTECH mechanized harvesting machines is reduced post-harvest loss. Mechanization allows farmers to preserve more of their production and fetch premium prices on the market.
                  • Machines installed in 32 rural communities throughout Ghana create jobs and a circular economy in rural areas around the installation of the machines that helps to stem rural-urban migration You might have to change your initial business/product idea after you launch based on customer behavior and continue to innovate to ensure that you are meeting customer needs.

                    • Follow Jeffrey of LinkedIn Thanks for joining us for another episode of the WTF podcast.

                    Guest appearance/sponsorship request: If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

                    Where to find us: Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, and on our website agazella.com/podcasts. Help us grow: Please subscribe, stream or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

                    Follow the WTF podcast on Instagram. Follow me on LinkedIn Join us for the next episode!--- This episode is sponsored by Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast.

                    https://anchor.fm/app

                    53 min
                  • College Friends Created a Crowdfunding Platform That Helps Smallholder Farmers Raise Financing with Seyram Kofi Mantey + Eugene Ofori Asiedu S2 Ep.9

                    Seyram Kofi Mantey (CEO) of Kwidex is a young, energetic, and consummate entrepreneur experienced in running small businesses ranging from branding, lending, imports, and crowdfunding. Eugene Ofori Asiedu (CTO) is a computer science and software developer experienced in building applications. Seyram and Eugene came together to create Kwidex, Ghana's biggest agricultural crowdfunding platform that gives everyday people an opportunity to own part of the value in agriculture.

                    Key interview highlights:

                    • KWIDEX was launched with a $10,000 grant from VAI global. KWIDEX is a crowdfunding platform for agricultural SMEs that is helping to solve the financing problems in the agricultural sector. It links farmers and agribusiness to investors and gives funding opportunities to novice investors who are interested in making a return on investment and impacting the agribusiness sector.
                    • KWIDEX is a commission-based model that generates revenue by charging 10% on investments made via the platform and has so far had over $500,000 in transactions.
                    • The KWIDEX platform is open to investment from anyone in any part of the world. Projects on the platform can be funded via mobile money and bank transfer. Investors could make a profit of 15-30% between 3-12 months of investment.
                    • Over 2,500 farmers have already benefited from the platform. The KWIDEX fundraising goal is to raise $100,000 via investors for 10% equity.

                      • Thanks for joining us for another episode of the WTF podcast.

                      If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

                      Guest Social Media: LinkedIn: Seyram Mantey; Eugene Asiedu

                      Where to find us: Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, and on our website agazella.com/podcasts.

                      Help us grow: Please subscribe, stream, or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

                      Follow the WTF podcast on Instagram. Follow me on LinkedIn: Join us for the next episode!--- This episode is sponsored by Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast.

                      https://anchor.fm/app

                      48 min
                    • The Black Opportunity Cost for Black Entrepreneurs with Tinotenda Chibebe S2 Ep. 8

                      Tinotenda Chibebe is the author of The Black Opportunity: Conversations on Belgian Venture Capital and Afropean Entrepreneurship that explores how the inclusion of black voices in the venture capital space will shape the world for generations to come. Tino has also written articles on Medium and for Complexs Greenlabel. He works on projects geared to advancing underdeveloped regions, regarding education and entrepreneurship in Africa.

                      Key interview highlights:

                      • The Black Opportunity is about creating access to opportunities and mass of wealth to black entrepreneurs all over the world and pulling a global conversation around venture capital. Europe operates within an ecosystem where a lot of things about race are less specific, unlike the US, with specific valid data that inform policies to track activities within VC and companies at large.
                      • Therefore, Venture capital is largely about the network ( who you know, how you know them, and your similarities). Best businesses are those who have access to such opportunities.
                      • The level of inclusion and equity in the VC ecosystem in Africa is low, black founders in Africa face biases, just as it is in the UK and US. Only 6% of African startups seeking funding receive $1M or more, the rest goes to non-black founders.
                      • The pattern matching practice among Venture Capital financiers creates a blueprint of what a successful founder should be, based on what has worked in the past. Black founders get left behind because they don't fit into the key signal.
                      • The global opportunity cost of pattern matching among others is the inability to maximize the societies' potentials to bring better solutions and better products that make the world a better place. Diversification of VCs is a big step to attracting a different set of founders and diversifying the venture capitalist network.
                      • The Black Opportunity is out now! Buy it on Amazon!

                        • Thanks for joining us for another episode of the WTF podcast. If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

                        Where to find us: Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

                        Help us grow: Please subscribe, stream, or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

                        Follow Tino on LinkedIn Follow me on LinkedIn Follow the WTF podcast on Instagram. Join us for the next episode!--- This episode is sponsored by Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast.

                        https://anchor.fm/app

                        39 min
                      • How Female Founders Can Use Gender Bias to Their Advantage with Umulinga Karangwa S2 Ep.7

                        Umulinga Karangwa is a Rwandese Fund Manager and Investment Advisor with 17 years of experience in financial services with a focus on investments in Africa. Over the past 13 years, Umulinga has raised and managed funds investing in Africa for different asset classes and is passionate about developing African capital markets and home-grown asset managers on the continent.

                        Key interview highlights:

                        • All investors take risks, but in different aspects and degrees; Private equities take a calculated risk by investing in companies with a good track record, growing but stable and promising.
                        • V.Cs invest in fast-growing companies with strong client attraction at an early stage. Angel investors take higher risk, as Investments are done with fair ticket sizes when founders are still quite unstable and without sizable revenue which is one of the reasons angel investors are crucial and critical for supporting start-ups.
                        • It is essential for founders to have a good networking approach and to understand the rudiments of fundraising as well as ways to connect investors, Part of which is getting coached for fundraising, connecting to incubators (most of which have serious investors with specialties backing them) and other entrepreneurs.
                        • The likeability of investors is higher when the business idea is scalable, can solve problems, create job opportunities, and have a strong founding team. Founders must be intentional and positive about their pitch. Confident, committed, strong, open to collaboration, and inquiring of feedback from investors.
                        • Founders should be resilient enough to go back with a better module when feedback is negative.

                          • Connect with Umulinga on LinkedIn

                          Thanks for joining us for another episode of the WTF (Africa Edition) podcast. We would love to hear your feedback on the show and how we could improve so please complete this short survey.

                          Guest/sponsorship request: If you would like to be a guest or sponsor the podcast, please contact us at [email protected].

                          Where to find us: Anchor, Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

                          Help us grow: Please subscribe, stream or download, leave a rating or review and share your favorite episodes with family, friends, and colleagues.

                          Follow the WTF podcast on Instagram and Facebook.

                          Join us for the next episode!--- This episode is sponsored by Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast.

                          https://anchor.fm/app

                          39 min

                        About WHERE’S THE FUNDING?

                        From the publisher's feed

                        The WHERE’S THE FUNDING? podcast demystifies entrepreneurship and the fog around funding for Black and other underserved entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurs share their entrepreneurship journeys, fundraising…