A Peek into the Future of African VC...

via Track 9 of The Trajectory Africa with Future Africa's Adenike Sheriff

Happy Thursday, everyone! This year’s HBS Africa Business Conference was held last weekend to “Reimagine the World Ahead” and serve up a live performance from Fireboy. To some degree, this episode of The Trajectory Africa does the same—it reimagines the future of African venture funds through the origin story of an emerging fund and one of its co-founders. 

You may recall that the previous episode tackled some inconvenient truths about how difficult it is to construct a high-performing, Africa-focused, GP/LP fund. But in this episode, Track 9, I speak to Adenike Sheriff, Co-founder of Future Africa, a fund manager that invests early in mission driven founders solving hard problems for large markets. Adenike and I chat about how she plotted an “unlikely” path into VC by co-founding Future Africa, why her “blank slate” thinking resulted in the creation of the Future Africa Collective, what thorny challenges can emerge while you’re trying new things, why market-creating innovations constitute a significant investment opportunity, and what adventures lie ahead for Future Africa.

Arguably, one of the most compelling aspects of exploring African VC is watching the evolution that comes from innovation. Adenike’s Future Africa story is not only one of fund innovation, but also of widening the opportunity space for “non-traditional” investors such as Adenike herself, but also the Future Africa Collective’s community members. Quite literally (by its own definition), Future Africa is the Fund for Africa’s Future. 

Here’s to reimagining a future for African venture that includes more fund innovation, more imaginative GPs, and more opportunities to create wealth for everyday Africans. 

Until next time,
Tayo