In the first three months of 2022, African startups have raised over $1 billion and with more local and foreign investments, African startups will continue to secure more funding.
Despite all these, there still exists a gap between, investors and founders on the African continent. While it is true that African startups are raising money, a large percentage of them especially the early-stage ones lack the way and how to go about it.
This challenge led to the founding of Conectivest by Benedict Afolami Co-founder/CEO and Ose Eromosele Co-founder/CFO.
The co-founders with over 15 combined years in the technology and finance industries, discovered the wide gap between founders and investors in Nigeria and Africa at large and took it upon themselves to address the issue.
Conectivest is a platform connecting Investors and Startups in a seamless and efficient way. According to the co-founders, the platform provides a great and exciting way for all founders, hubs, accelerators, and investors to connect with one another and exchange value in the ecosystem.
“Funding early-stage startups means investing in the future by creating a world where talent meets opportunities.”
In a chat with Benedict Afolami, Techbuild learnt how Conectivest is bridging the funding gap and enabling individual and professional investors to own stakes in fast-growing startups
How Conectivest work
Investors, founders, hubs, and accelerators can simply register, and log in, to begin exchanging value in the ecosystem.
Products on Connectivest that facilitate these include;
Conectivest Stack: this enables founders to prepare and share their company’s profiles to potential investors, taking care of all the other underground work.
Founders Connect: similar to a mini social media, it allows founders to look up and connect with other founders and investors alike.
Deal Manager: an organized hub for investors to easily manage their deals and investments, either singularly or with their angel syndicate or investment clubs.
Investors Connect: similar to founders connect, it allows investors to meet and form groups, especially those who share a vested interest in investing in the same startup.
How Conectivest is matching startups with investors
As explained by Benedict, the solution stems from their understanding that successful fundraising always begins with a connection between investors and startups.
To this effect, they built an efficient easy-to-use product called ‘Connect’ – that enables startups search, find and connect to global investors and vice versa.
“It’s an investment networking space that facilitates founder to founder connection; investor to investor connection; hub to founder connection and investor to founder connections”
The hardest stage of fundraising for startup founders
According to Benedict, from experience, startups at their MVP pre-revenue stage find it more difficult to raise capital from Angel Investors because often times their product is just hitting the market and has not been tested and trusted to be really addressing a pain point relevant enough to build a sustainable business.
Funding bias against female founders
In the words of Benedict, “Not at all, I now see a steady growth of VCs and Angel groups backing female entrepreneurs these days. And this is only the beginning, especially for Africa.”
Milestones
Conectivest officially launched in June 2021 and has since then according to the co-founders has onboarded more than 350 active Africa-focused investors emerging from 3 major Investment groups namely; LoftyInc Capital Management, Midlothian Angel Network, South-South-East Angel Network.
According to Benedict, these investors have done directly and indirectly through the platform over 50 deals to the tune of USD$ 2.2M.
Conectivest application and cost
A founder or investor simply needs to register and log in to start pitching or investing respectively.
Founders can use the Stack product to upload and update their company profile anytime, search and connect with choice investors currently on the platform.
According to Benedict, Connectivest organizes weekly pitch demo days where founders ready to fundraise meet with investors on our platform who in turn give them valuable feedback and may even proceed to invest.
Investors can use the Connect product to search, find and connect with choice founders and startups, create syndicates with their syndicate members from their connections, and invest directly using our deal support services. This deal closure service is facilitated by our international partnerships.
The entire process involved in investing in startups i.e from deal discovery to closure can be done on the Conectivest platform.
Bottom line
Benedict and Ose having understood the importance of an ecosystem designed especially for startups to give founders a platform to seamlessly pitch their businesses to a broader audience of potential investors, through Conectivest, are out to increase the chances of startups being funded.
Conectivest enables investors
- find Pre-vetted Startups (standalone or affiliated with hubs) across different industries and markets in Africa
- form syndicates on the go in US, UK & Nigeria at very competitive prices
- use its Deal manager to manage deal flow from deal origination to closure and seamlessly aggregate investment funds using our wallet system for efficient and timely investments
- manage the various investment groups they belong to using our interactive dashboard
- connect with other stakeholders in the ecosystem using our global chat functionality and In- mail service.
Featured Image: Benedict Afolami Co-founder/CEO (left) and Ose Eromosele Co-founder/CFO (Right)
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