On Listening with Empathy...
and other lesser-known fundraising secrets from Track 10 of the Trajectory Africa
Happy Thursday! It’s hard to believe (for me, anyway), that this week’s episode is the next to last in the Trajectory Africa series. Looking back, what I’ve found rewarding about this experience is the opportunity to unearth nuggets of non-obvious truth. Yes, this series is called “The Trajectory” and I’m earnestly tracing the contours of African tech and VC. But this is a tool to understand the system(s) that underlie the (predominantly funding-focused) headlines. For example, we tend to hear less about fundraising from the GP’s perspective. This is a bit unfortunate, because funds have to be raised before they’re invested, right?
Flashback to the last two episodes, where we focused on how GPs structure and manage their funds to invest and generate returns. Now, we turn our attention to the intricacies of investor relations, and yes, fundraising. For this conversation, we’re in the capable hands of Danai Musandu, who’s spent several years working in investor relations. She’s currently a Senior Investor Relations Associate at HPE Growth, where she leads and supports the public and investor relations function. Prior to HPE, Danai was an Investment and Investor Relations Associate at Goodwell Investments, an early-stage technology private equity firm focused on emerging markets and impact investing.
In this episode, Track 10, Danai and I chat about all the good stuff: how she got into VC/PE, what motivated her to trade Table Mountain for the Rijksmuseum, the fundraising process and how it differs by LP type, what LPs look for when they evaluate funds, the do’s and don’ts of raising money, and why deep listening and cultural multi-linguality are super powers for investor relations professionals. To be fair, raising for an established fund ≠ raising for a new one. But good principles, like the ones Danai shares, always apply.
But back to the obviously non-obvious. A good bit of the dialogue in the African venture space is numbers-focused, with good reason. A lot of what drives running a startup or a fledgling fund is sales, and sales are driven by numbers. Another key driver? Relationships. Relationships characterized by trust, empathy, and the ability to listen. At the risk of oversimplifying, we’ve seen stark examples of what can happen to founders and their companies when relationships break down. So, before you fire up your Airtable and polish off your deck, take a moment to think about the people on the other side of your pitch. You might find a road to shared understanding that your spreadsheets won’t reveal.
Until next time,
Tayo