ACCOMPLISH MAGAZINE APRIL 2024
April edition with Tomi Davies, Africa's Top Angel, on the cover and other stories.
April edition with Tomi Davies, Africa's Top Angel, on the cover and other stories.
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COVER<br />
TD AT THE TVCLABS HANGOUT 2023<br />
Nigeria as the chief operating officer<br />
for the first data play in the country<br />
which was an off-the-shelf company<br />
called Mobitel. We deployed about<br />
100 base stations and got to about<br />
two and a half million users in Lagos<br />
before the big boys decided that they<br />
didn't want us to play and essentially<br />
took us out.<br />
So that was it for me for corporate.<br />
I decided I'd had enough and started<br />
focusing on my start-ups because,<br />
by then one of my earlier start-ups<br />
called Supa Strikas... (Diiyi, you worked<br />
with us as General Manager. Do you<br />
remember that?)<br />
Interviewer: Yes.<br />
H. Tomi Davies(TD): Do you<br />
know it now belongs to Disney?<br />
Interviewer: No, I didn't.<br />
H. Tomi Davies(TD): We sold<br />
it to Moonbug in 2018/19. Then,<br />
Moonbug turned around and sold it to<br />
Disney. So it's now a Disney property.<br />
It's got about three million users on<br />
YouTube. And, it's now in at least<br />
eight different languages, including<br />
Polish. The fact that you can build a<br />
company that Disney buys says it all,<br />
you know, so to speak.<br />
Then, in 2010, 2011, some Kings<br />
College old boys and myself got<br />
together to form what was called<br />
the King's College Lions, sort of like a<br />
dragon's den investment syndicate.<br />
I was also running something called<br />
Mobile Monday. I was doing quite a lot<br />
in the ecosystem. A delegation came<br />
and said, "Guys, you can't be doing<br />
this elitist KC boys' thing only. This<br />
has to be a Lagos thing." So, I agreed<br />
and that's how we created the Lagos<br />
Angel Network in 2012.<br />
We then looked around as we<br />
started to invest, and we couldn't find<br />
any angel network. We found our that<br />
there were only five angel networks<br />
on the African continent! So, in 2015,<br />
we created the Africa Business Angel<br />
Network, courtesy of my big sister,<br />
who at that time was the president of<br />
the European Business Angel Network,<br />
Candice Johnson. She invited all of<br />
us to Helsinki in Finland in 2014 to<br />
say, 'Hey guys, we've got a European<br />
Business Angel Network. Why isn't<br />
there an African one?" And that's<br />
when it was created. So this year will<br />
make it 10 years.<br />
After that happened, I spent 2015<br />
to literally 2020 criss-crossing Africa.<br />
Remember, I told you there were only<br />
five angel networks. Today, we have<br />
over 68 angel networks in 38 African<br />
countries and we have over 2,000<br />
angels on the continent!<br />
We don't only have the Africa<br />
Using technology<br />
for open data,<br />
e-governance and<br />
digital platforms<br />
can promote<br />
transparency and<br />
hold institutions<br />
accountable.<br />
Business Angel Network (A-BAN), we<br />
have the African Angels Academy<br />
that has trained literally hundreds of<br />
business angels across the continent.<br />
We also have the Catalytic<br />
Fund, which is a matching fund that<br />
matches - when an angel investor<br />
from A-BAN invests in a start-up<br />
that's been through a programme<br />
run by an innovation hub that<br />
belongs to Afri Labs, we actually<br />
match their funds as a grant to the<br />
start-ups to accelerate the economic<br />
development of the area. I think I've<br />
probably missed out quite a fair bit,<br />
but that's a thumbnail sketch.<br />
www.theaccomplishmagazine.com<br />
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