Denis Opudo
The lack of know-how on the African continent is driving many investors away. But Maya Horgan Famodu, a 26 years old entrepreneur comes in to solve the problem in the Silicon Valley. She links the African entrepreneur ecosystem and tech investors. Famodu was brought up in an entrepreneurship family comprising of the US and Nigerian parents. Moreover, she is an expert in private equity research. She learned on the influence underdeveloped financial infrastructure has on businesses. She then developed a way to bring Africa and the West on the same table. Famodu then launched the Ingressive startup to help solve out the problem.
Famodu got partners from 500 Techstars, Startups and Glickman Trust in her first entry into Africa in 2015. The move led to direct investment and two joint ventures. The ingressive startup uses Y Combinator to offer market entry services to investors and corporates. This helps them increase the number of Nigerian startups in the program. YC invested in almost 25% of startups that were short cased during the company’s market entry trip in 2015. Furthermore, their Nigerian founder’s application increased by 200%. All the startups have gone ahead to raise capital and expand their businesses.
Investors get chance to join the Ingressive startup for a period of one week. That one week is dedicated to a lengthy discussion of the technology ecosystem. They share discussions with many founders, visit tech centers, and attend various conferences. Corporate travelers have a meet the company’s objective trips. The main purpose of the trips is to initiate different deals. Furthermore, the startup holds an annual conference in Lagos Nigeria. They choose on Lagos since it is the largest African city with 20 million people. Moreover, it is the tech giant in Africa and many more. Nigeria is the wealthiest black nation globally. It has a population of around 200 million people. Moreover, it hosts active and potential acquirers like Uber, Google, GE, Intel, IBM and Ringier and many more. In 2017 Ingressive had almost 750 attendees.
Famodu decided to get into venture capital world because of the outcry of her clients. The clients requested her to take care of their funds. The fact that she was part of sourcing, diligence and investment process also influenced her decision. Her startup currently has technology programs at every Nigerian major university. Ingressive targets to expand to outside Africa by the end of 2018. But their main focus in now in the East and South Africa. Moreover, it is launching new programs. One example is open source partnership between Silicon Valley experts and African hackers.
