Many startups in Africa suffer due to inadequate infrastructure which they could easily acquire if they had access to sufficient capital.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, this problem is largely aggravated by several deficiencies in financial infrastructure, such as average interest rates being at 25%, nepotism in the banking and venture sectors, and an investor-base still very much skeptical about African startups.
Ingressive.co
On the other hand, there are foreign investors who want to invest in Africa but are unfamiliar with the African entrepreneur ecosystem.
Enter Ingressive.co. It is the middleman between Western investors and African entrepreneurs. Ingressive.co exists to provide African startups with the financial support they need in order to flourish. It also serves as the insider that equips foreign investors with the know-how or resources to penetrate the African entrepreneur ecosystem.
A Taste Of Both Worlds And The Desire To Bring Them Together
For one to establish a service like Ingressive.co that caters to both the US and the continent of Africa, such a person must have a concrete understanding of how business works in both worlds. This accurately defines Maya Horgan Famodu, a 26-year-old Nigerian-American big on Venture Capitalism and the founder of Ingressive.co.
Raised in an entrepreneurial family with US and Nigerian ties, Maya developed a desire to understand how the surplus of capital and resources in the US could be redirected to Africa. She also gained valuable experience while working in private equity research and seeing how businesses suffer in the absence of adequate infrastructure. As a result, she hatched her idea to bring foreign investors in the West and entrepreneurs in Africa together. Today, her company Ingressive.co serves as the middleman helping Western investors find their footing in Africa and enabling African startups get the funding they need to reach their full potential.
How Ingressive.co Works With Foreign Investors To Implement Their African Strategy
Ingressive.co works by providing investors with market entry services to help them increase Nigerian companies in their program. These investors then choose which startups they want to invest in from the ones showcased through the market entries. Ingressive.co has worked with clients such as the popular American seed accelerator, Y Combinator, by helping them increase the number of Nigerian companies in their program and this has led to a 200% spike in the applications they’ve received from Nigerian founders.
Achievements, Milestones, And Plans For The Future
As part of its efforts to familiarise foreign investors with the African technology ecosystem, Ingressive.co organises semi-annual tours where investor meet with dozens of founders, visit tech centres, meet pre-vetted co-investment partners, attend a number of conferences, and liaise with leading executives in banking, and other sectors that will play a major role in the support of portfolio companies. Ingressive.co has hosted executive startups like Techstars, 500 Startups, Wingpact, and Glickman Trust amongst others.
Ingressive has also set out to launch more programs and services that will lead to collaborations between Silicon Valley engineers and African hackers. It also plans to establish a space for the tech community in Lagos.
Featured image source: Ingressive.co
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