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Event // Scaling An African Startup

May 16, 2022 @ 5:30 pm - 7:30 pm

Scaling An African Startup

Event // Scaling An African Startup

Africa is world’s second largest continent and the second most populous continent  with a population of about 2 billion people. It is estimated that By 2050, more than half of the world’s population growth will be in Africa.

And currently, the continent is home to six out of the ten of the fastest-growing economies in the world, however,  lack of formal infrastructure means a smartphone is often the best gateway to access everyday services or finance or start a business. 

This has forced the continent to be innovative in order to survive – and in fact has propelled the continent to the forefront of the new digital economy, leapfrogging over the rest of world with solutions such as MPESA

Today, Africa has 16% of the world’s population and just 2% of the world’s doctors, yet this under supply has created a market for new health tech companies aiming to plug the gap, from Silicon Valley (Zipline) to Rwanda (Babyl).

Despite  a myriad of challenges, Africa is still bringing up some of the best innovations, and attracting more funding globally than before. Despite the challenges, African start-ups are being named in global platforms like TIMES 100, alongside global companies like Facebook and Alphabet.

But what does it really take to build a successful business in Africa? What are some of the challenges that young African Entrepreneurs face? How can you overcome these challenges? 

With experience from founding leading African startups, Jihan Abass (CEO of Lami), and Mutethia (Tesh) Mbaabu (CEO of Marketforce), and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, (General Partner of Future Africa), join us on Monday 16th May from 5:30pm at Nairobi Garage Kilimani for a session on scaling the African Startup.

During the Session the three speakers will be sharing their learnings from their failures and successes in scaling African startups. The session will be followed by a Q&A and networking session will follow the conversation.  You don’t want to miss.

RSVP: https://bit.ly/RSVP-FoundersMeetup

When: Monday, 16th May
Where:Nairobi Garage // 7th Floor Pinetree Plaza
Time: 5:30PM
RSVP: https://bit.ly/RSVP-FoundersMeetup

About the speakers

Tesh Mbaabu, CEO of Marketforce

Tesh is an African serial technology entrepreneur who lives to blend commerce and technology. He is a creative and strategic thinker from both a product and commercial perspective; he is experienced in building startups in the African scene. 

He is the Co-founder & CEO of Mesozi Group, an information technology holding company offering and investing in tech-enabled solutions across several industries and markets in Africa. 

Their flagship product, MarketForce, provides an all-inclusive B2B Commerce and Fintech platform (dubbed “RejaReja” – Swahili for ‘retail’) that empowers merchants in Africa to source, order, and pay for inventory digitally and conveniently, access financing, collect digital payments and make extra money by reselling digital financial services such as airtime, electricity tokens and bill payments. 

As an avid adventure seeker, Tesh co-founded Cloud9xp, which helps travelers quickly discover and book the best leisure experiences, at the best price, across Africa. 

Cloud9xp was among the 11 startups to be selected for the Google Launchpad Accelerator Africa program in 2018. They exited to HotelOnline in 2020. 

Prior to founding Mesozi, Tesh was the Founder and Creative Director of a graphic, web, and digital design agency, Tesh Technologies Limited(TeshTeq), a venture he started at 18. 

Through his personal blog, he shares about his journey as a technology entrepreneur, the adventures he undertakes, the people he meets, the books he’s reading, and what he’s learning; as an African trep (a young business mogul). 

He is a Harambean 2020, Westerwelle Young Founder 2019, Alibaba and UN Fellow 2019, and was awarded Techpreneur of the Year 2019 in the East Africa FOYA(Founder of the Year) awards and African Garage Top 25 under 25 Entrepreneurs in Kenya in 2015. He is a graduate of Computer Science from the University of Nairobi.

Jihann Abbas, CEO Lami

Jihan Abass is the founder of Griffin Insurance, Kenya’s first digital car insurance company.Griffin Insurance was formed in 2016 and seeks to revolutionize the way car insurance and the processing of claims is done in Kenya – done through a mobile app that allows one to buy insurance policy in less than two minutes.

Griffin Insurance, released its flagship mobile application, Kenya’s first digital-only car insurance company, which lets customers pay in installments and pause coverage if they travel abroad.

Griffin will process claims in a week rather than the industry standard of 30 days.

In 2017, Abbass also founded Lami Technologies a company is committed to embracing innovation and leveraging technology and big data to address markets in Kenya and the wider region.

However, Lami is not just about technology or risk, but rather a customer-centric company with a culture of innovation and creativity, a culture of data and measurables, and a culture of collaboration and solidarity.

​Lami’s purpose is to increase insurance penetration and its distribution beyond the traditional channels, mainly through digital pathways.

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, (General Partner of Future Africa)

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji is an entrepreneur in the public interest. He is passionate about partnering with missionary talent and capital to build an African future. 

He spent the last few years as the CEO of Flutterwave, a business building payments technology and infrastructure to connect Africa to the global economy. 

Over those years, he led the company to become one of the fastest growing payments technology businesses of all-time processing over $2 billion across over 50 million transaction with annual revenues of millions of dollars a year. 

It also attracted significant investment from experienced players in the global payments arena such as Y Combinator (investors in Stripe), Greycroft (investors in Braintree), Greenvisor Capital (Led by the Former CEO of Visa), Mastercard amongst others. 

Prior to helping to co-found and lead Flutterwave, Iyinoluwa co-founded Andela – Africa’s largest engineering organization with over 1000 software engineers which has received investment from Mark Zuckerberg and Google Ventures amongst others. 

Iyin now heads Fund for Africa’s Future where he spends time helping founders, philanthropists and investors from around the world understand how to do build fast growing and impactful technology businesses in Africa. 

He is working to identify passionate and experienced missionary entrepreneurs with the integrity and courage to flawlessly execute in Africa while developing a data backed and informed point of view on how to turn Africa’s largest challenges into incredible business opportunities.

Fund for Africa’s Future celebrates missionary entrepreneurs while empowering them to serve the next generation of missionary entrepreneurs. Iyinoluwa holds a bachelor’s degree in Legal Studies from the University of Waterloo; and sits on the board of several institutions including Paris’ Share Africa Project, Rainbow Educational Services Limited and Filmo Realty.

When: Monday, 16th May
Where:Nairobi Garage // 7th Floor Pinetree Plaza
Time: 5:30PM
RSVP: https://bit.ly/RSVP-FoundersMeetup

International Entrepreneurship Bootcamp (IEB)

Venue

Nairobi Garage Kilimani
Pinetree Plaza, Kaburu Drive
Nairobi, Kenya
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Phone:
+254790556955
Website:
https://nairobigarage.com/office-space-in-kilimani/
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