Ingressive Capital Adds Four New Startups To Its Network
The startup ecosystem in Africa is at an exciting phase right now with deals and many more activities happening at a pace that is amazing to watch. This is a great time for us here at Ingressive Capital to make investments, backing the next generation of African unicorns, while staying committed to being the most impactful VC on their cap table. While we don’t make investments based on popular opinions, we still exercise caution by ensuring we understand why we want to back a startup before going ahead with it.
We did welcome four (4) portcos to the IC family; Afropolitan Group - a Community As A Service Company (CAAS), which creates opportunities, resources and unique experiences for Africans in the Diaspora, SAVA - a simple, sophisticated accounting software integration for forward-thinking entrepreneurs, Gamp - Expert Care for Devices providers of expert care for devices in Africa, and WoodCore - Cloud Banking Platform an exciting platform that provides a flexible banking application in the last month. Everything about these startups excites us but we will be sharing very concisely the things we need you should capitalize on as we tend to look out for before making investments in startups.
Idea
“We are making a confident bet on Gamp - It's more about creating an ecosystem that makes becoming middle class more affordable and staying in the middle class more feasible. Tech can strengthen the middle class by lowering costs, friction and making services and products more accessible. That's sort of the lens we are looking through.” – Agnes Aistleitner (Kesho VC)
As a founder, you need to completely understand what your business is set to do and convey that effectively by leveraging communication materials. Gamp walked us clearly through their approach to solving the problem presented where device manufacturers (OEMs) don't provide support in Africa, a continent with 520m connected devices, through device protection plans and tech-enabled after-sales support for a continent where projections say that there will be more smartphones compared to North America by 2025.
Founders
One other thing that is crucial in every startup will be your founders and team members generally because these people are responsible for operations as well as nurturing the company to a sustainable place. We made investments in Afropolitan because their idea is amazing and we have a strong feeling about the founders being able to drive this company due to the years of experience they all have around community building, partnerships, business development and governance. One of the ways to convince investors to back your startup is by ensuring that the ideal individuals who can help your company scale are on your team.
Market Size
For a startup a good return on any investment, it needs to show plans to reach a large enough market. SAVA showed us its potential for being big in the future by clearly articulating how many businesses they plan to reach and the annual revenue their solution can generate. Sava also shared its plans to launch newer solutions in newer markets and marketing and B2B campaigns to aid accelerated adoption efforts.
Competitors
Startups are all about achieving scale at an exponential rate and becoming the dominant player in the market. Hence it becomes very important to know what other players already exist in the market and what strategies you have to compete with them.
For Woodcore, we noticed that its existence in the market fits well with current trends as we witness how the pandemic has driven the use of digital banking services. Traditional banks and financial institutions are facing increasing competition from Neobanks and Fintechs who are able to easily adapt to customer needs. These traditional institutions struggle to provide the convenience, flexibility, and lower costs that consumers prioritise. The cloud banking service that Woodcore provides makes a case for institutions who are looking to compete, operate and participate in the future of banking and consumer-directed financial services. It is a much cheaper and more time-effective solution. Tyme Bank, a digital bank in South Africa has made 56% cost savings from cloud services.
Beyond this, cloud banking is a major catalyst for financial inclusion in Africa. With 50% of the population unbanked, financial services can be made available to the unbanked and underbanked. Mobile phone penetration is expected to reach 74% in the Middle East and Africa by 2025, a catalyst for digital transformation.
Ingressive Capital invests in brilliant, resourceful founders with demonstrated grit in building tech-enabled businesses in billion dollar markets; if you meet one or all of the list before, then we want to hear from you. Kindly send us your pitch!
Your company is an early stage African startup
You are based in Sub-Saharan Africa or Egypt
You have launched your startup / have initial traction (i.e. money, users, etc.)
You have a clear business model
You are a high-growth technology business targeting a large market
You have technical industry talent on your core team
You and your team are bright, hungry, and know your market