gT4rH

This is an excellent question. I think it depends on how efficient you think the African (or
Global) market is in allocating capital to worthwhile (African) start-ups. Note the brackets in
the last sentence.
How efficient is good?
Well let me anchor you back to situation I had in Silicon Valley about a month ago. I met a
start-up focused on Africa I am an advisor for a routine meeting- basically we met at a
coffee shop that we both like and when I showed up and I noticed that the start-up was
spending a huge amount of time applying for grants. This is how the conversation went:
• Mbwana: “STOP IT! Find real investors!”.
• The Start-up: “but its free money!”... Point well taken.
• Mbwana: “But it takes you so long to fill out these forms to AID organizations who
don’t even get your technology and even longer for them to respond- you could be
building out your prototype and making tangible progress”
• The Start-up: “But we still need the money! Oh and its free”- Point taken again…
(Note this start-up had an excellent prototype and I noticed the team was well
rounded with an engineer and business development who had just quit her job to
join this start-up).
Sounds familiar right? I call it inefficiency. As I left the coffee shop I suddenly remembered
someone I met a week earlier who loved the domain the start-up was in, not only that, she
had a soft spot for women led start-ups and she’d been to Africa a few times and knew the
environment pretty well. I immediately made the intro via my smart phone.
Less than a week later the start-up had secured further angel investment from this person in
one meeting. This is how efficient Silicon Valley is. I have heard of stories of start-ups being
flooded with money on AngelList the moment they post on the website. Silicon Valley is
incredibly efficient- or you could argue it’s now a bubble and the pendulum has swung way