🎙️ Welcome to Season 3: New Beginnings, New Brand, Same Mission In this special season premiere, we unveil our new brand positioning as The African Pre-seed Podcast Powered by 54 Collective. While our mission remains the same—delivering rich insights for Africa-focused founders and investors—this season reflects our partnership with 54 Collective, …

🎙️ This month's episode takes us to Tunisia, speaking to Mariem Sellami, a founder and former program manager at Startup Tunisia to understand what it’s like running a venture in Tunisia. 🇹🇳 Like most nascent tech ecosystems, the government plays an important role in the Tunisian ecosystem, with legal frameworks like the Startup Act—passed in 2019—…

🌍 Creating impact in the African tech ecosystem takes many stakeholders, and while venture dollars might grab the biggest headlines, foundation and impact partners also play a crucial role. You might even argue—correctly—that these impact partners have influenced traditional VC players and shaped how they think about investing on the continent. 🚀 T…

📍 The end of the year's first quarter is typically a time for companies—and their founders—to take stock of what has been accomplished so far. So for public companies, we huddle over investor calls and try to understand performance. For private companies, we hope and pray a media publication somehow finds their numbers and shares them with us. 🎯 Fo…

💡 Join our host, Loraine Achar, featuring esteemed panelists Bruce Nsereko-Lule (General Partner, Seedstars Africa Ventures), June Odongo (Founder & CEO, Senga Technologies), Jason Musyoka (Chief Financial Officer, Rology), as they go bar-for-bar on the topic of discussion, “The Good and Bad of Funding - Choosing the Right Capital in 2024.” 💸 📍 Cho…

🎙️ In this episode, we talk about how founders can focus on solving real problems instead of building ventures that prioritise fundraising first and solving user pain points second. With fundraising harder and founders finding themselves in a pinch, the macro seems to be exerting overt influence on how founders position and build their businesses. …

🇿🇦 This month's podcast was recorded at the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit 2023 (AESIS 2023), held in Cape Town between 30 November and 2 December 2023. Featuring sector heavyweights Aly El Shalakany (Advisory Board Member, AESIS), Eleni Gabre-Madhin (Chief Innovation Officer, UNDP Africa), Tracy Kimathi (Founder, BARIDI), Ben White (Director a…

🎙️ In this month’s podcast, the final one for the year 2023, we talk about how iteration leads to success and also touch on the Zambian tech ecosystem. Gilbert Lungu, the Country Manager for Cellulant, one of Africa’s “OG” fintech startups that has raised $55 million to date. Lungu has the chops to help us understand the Zambian tech ecosystem, hav…

African Pre-seed Podcast S2 Ep8: Investing in Francophone Africa’s tech ecosystem 🎙️ In this month’s episode of the African Pre-seed Podcast, Lorraine Achar speaks to Benoit Delestre, Managing Partner at Saviu Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests in early-stage startups in Francophone Africa. Yep, you read that right… Francophone Africa, a…

African Pre-seed Podcast S2 Ep7: Is Fintech the one true ecosystem vertical? On the 2nd of November, the African Pre-seed podcast partnered with the Africa FinTech Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, to host the first-ever edition of APS Live, where our host, Hope Ditlhakanyane had three amazing guests on the couch in front of a live audience to discuss whet…

African Pre-seed Podcast S2 Ep6: Passionate Dissent from Ada Ventures with Ebele Okobi In this exciting podcast episode, Ebele Okobi, Venture Partner at Ada Ventures, shares their journey into the tech ecosystem and their insights on leadership, diversity, and more. As someone with many hats, Ebele speaks about the decisions that founders make that…

This months #APSVibecheck Podcast episode features Peter Muhumuza, CTO of Ugandan telecommunications company, Roke Telkom. In Uganda, home-grown Roke Telkom is one of the first tier three carrier-neutral data center at the forefront of cloud computing revolution, helping businesses to leverage the full potential of telecommunications backed by clou…

🇩🇿 This months #APSVibecheck Podcast episode features Kamel Haddar, CEO and Founder of temtem ONE, the 1st digital gift card solution for B2C and B2B in Algeria – a wide and curated offer of products and services for Diaspora and Businesses alongside a fintech offer of digital payment through QR codes and cashback programs. That's it for now. See y…

This month's special #APSVibecheck Podcast episode features live conversations from the GITEX AFRICA Morocco tech startup showcase, which shone a spotlight on the collective technological progress of Morocco, the Middle East and the Africa as a whole. We caught up with Co-founder and CEO of Impact Lab Africa, Salma Kabbaj, Africa Editor at Rest of …

This month's #APSVibecheck Podcast episode features Ahmed Kadous, the co-founder and CEO of Pharmacy Marts, a healthtech startup based in Egypt. While healthcare is a critical need across the continent, it can sometimes feel like healthtech doesn’t get much attention compared to fintech, e-commerce or energytech. This conversation with Kadous is fi…

In this first episode of season two of the African Preseed podcast, Maria Pienaar, an operating partner at Unicorn Growth Capital, offers a new perspective on thinking about failure, innovation, and the societal differences that can affect founders' thinking and offers practical steps for changing one's mindset. “Failure is not seen as a disaster b…

In this special edition #APSVibecheck episode, the African Pre-seed podcast travels to Cairo, where we speak to five players in the Egyptian tech ecosystem about what is happening on the ground in Cairo and the broader tech environment. These players are Karima El Hakim, Country Director Egypt, Plug and Play Tech Centre; Diego Garcia, Investor Afri…

Lesotho-born Medtech entrepreneur and CEO of Thola, Nneile Nkholise, joins us on this Agritech-themed #APSVibecheck instalment of the African Pre-seed Podcast. Thola is accelerating auditing and global export compliance certification for farmers and their products for climate sustainability and quality standards through a mass decentralised 'Certif…

In this e-commerce-themed episode, Co-Founder and CEO of Omnibiz Africa, Deepankar Rustagi, shares his insights about measuring success in the African e-commerce space and the business models that are best positioned to succeed within the broad online market. 🤔 B2B e-commerce asks that you throw away vanity metrics Hi there, Olumuyiwa here again. Y…

Ethiopian tech investor and CEO of Arifpay, Bernard Laurendeau, joins us on this fintech-themed #APSVibecheck instalment of the African Pre-seed Podcast. ArifPay is Ethiopias first universal mobile Point of Sales (mPOS), an electronic payment platform designed for use by merchants, banks, and consumers in Ethiopia that any business, merchant, or co…

Desiree is passionate about breaking boundaries and inspiring women founders to re-discover and write a new narrative for Africa. Her work is synonymous with advocating for innovation, emerging technologies, and start-up ecosystems that foster collaboration and sustainable relationships among women in the tech sector. In this episode, we look deepe…

Tomiwa Aladekomo leads the team at Big Cabal Media, which publishes the tech and youth publications, TechCabal and Zikoko. Big Cabal is building the next generation of African media brands and creating some of the continent's most interesting and exciting original content. What to look forward to in this episode: What’s your favorite African tech s…

Russell is the author of a book recently published by the Manchester University Press titled Africa. 2.0: Inside a continent’s communications revolution. Russell’s book critically examines the impact these technologies have had on development practices and the role development actors have played in accelerating regulatory reform, fibre roll-out, an…

Tech entrepreneur, Gugulethu Siso, joins us on this logistics-themed #APSVibecheck instalment of the African Pre-seed Podcast. Gugulethu has co-founded two startups, namely Ninety Nine Investments, a B2B trolley management startup in Namibia, and Thumeza, a supply chain fintech startup in South Africa. Thumeza provides data-powered financing to the…

Tech entrepreneur, operator and investor Duncan Muchangi joins us for this fintech-themed #APSVibeCheck instalment of the African Pre-seed Podcast. Duncan has operated, invested in, and advised various leading tech platforms that have scaled globally. Quite notably, he was part of the team at Jumia that helped set the company up for its much-public…

Viola Llewellyn, Kendrall Felder and Larry Yon talk about cybersecurity risks and unpack what early-stage fintech Founders on the continent need to be doing to build safe and robust digital infrastructure. What to look forward to in this episode: What does financial and cyber inclusion in Africa look like? [6:54] How early should tech founders inve…

African Pre-Seed #04 - Vibe Check with Tayo Akinyemi The Trajectory Africa explores the trajectory or pathway of venture capital and startup formation in Africa. It aims to identify a destination for African tech and the signposts that signal the direction of travel. The series came in the wake of Tayo co-publishing a report called Chasing Outliers…

Joining co-hosts Hope and Rajiv for this pertinent two-part healthtech-themed edition of The African Pre-seed Podcast is the Co-founder and CEO of Nigerian HealthTech startup Reliance Health, Femi Kuti. Reliance Health's recent $40 million in Series B funding (the largest of its kind in Africa's healthtech scene) underscored a growing investor appe…

Adegoke Oyeniyi lets us in on what the streets of Lagos are saying about #Fluttergate and toxic workplaces in Nigeria, the rise of Web 3.0, and MTN’s mobile money moves. Also, do listen in to hear if Adegoke has plans to ‘japa’ (leave Nigeria for greener pastures) and whether he thinks there are any good reasons for Founders building in Nigeria to …

Welcome to the very first episode of the African Pre-seed Podcast! This show is for you if you are an Africa-focused founder or investor looking to learn more about Africa's tech ecosystem. To kick things off, we ask the question: "Why is agritech so hard, though?" Joining co-hosts Hope Ditlhakanyane and Rajiv Daya for this pertinent discussion is …