On Underestimating Fintech and First-time Fund Managers in Africa
The Trajectory Africa Track 7 is live!
Happy Friday! It’s hard to believe that the first month of 2022 is already over, but time does nothing if not pass. And yes, it’s also time for me to share the next installment of The Trajectory Africa.
In this episode, Track 7, I chat with Barbara Iyayi, an entrepreneur and investor with over 16 years of experience in venture capital, growth equity, and financial services. She is the CEO & Founding Partner of Unicorn Growth Capital, an early-stage VC firm investing in the future of fintech. Prior to launching Unicorn, she was a member of the founding team of Atlas Mara, Africa’s first SPAC, and conducted $15 billion dollars in global transactions for JPMorgan and UBS.
This conversation continues the exploration of key drivers of African VC. The last two episodes covered how SMEs enable consumption, and why digitizing and funding them is a venture-scale opportunity. This time, Barbara and I take a bird’s eye view of fintech as a cross-cutting enabler and investment opportunity, digging into how it will turbocharge Africa’s digital economy by digitizing the everyday transactions of consumers and businesses. We also discuss how she conquered the challenges of raising a fund as an African, female, first time GP, and how LPs can overestimate the risk of investing in emerging fund managers and African venture generally.
So yeah, we’re distilling perception from reality and deconstructing why “fintech is the fabric of life” in a rapidly digitizing Africa. Want more? Check out Derin Adebayo’s punchy piece (ICYMI) on why investing in African fintech is a no-brainer.
Until next time,
Tayo