Participated · Seed · Feb 2026

Founded in 2022 by Radhika Bhachu and Rogito Nyageri, Ndovu operates a fully regulated “DeFi bridge” that connects fragmented African capital markets to global investment opportunities. Through its mobile and web platform, users can start investing with as little as US$50 across global stocks, ETFs, pan-African products and tokenised crypto assets. The company combines advanced blockchain rails with AI-driven portfolio tools while maintaining CMA and fund-management licences in Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda and a no-objection letter for a Virtual Asset Providers Licence. Ndovu’s business model mixes AUM-linked fees, transaction & FX fees, and subscriptions, charging a 2–4.5% fee that has proven more trusted than earlier low-fee experiments. The service has attracted a community of 200,000 investors in 43 countries, amassing US$10.5 million in AUM and US$21 million in cumulative deposits. Near-term plans include securing additional fund-management licences in Zambia, DRC, Ethiopia and Angola to deepen its pan-African reach. The company believes its blend of high-tech infrastructure and human relationship managers will keep driving growth across volatile market cycles.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2024

Juicyway builds stablecoin-powered infrastructure for fast, cheap cross-border payments and liquidity for businesses. The three-year-old startup operated in stealth and says it processed roughly 25,000 transactions, $1.3 billion in total payment volume and over $1 billion in cross-border payments from about 4,000 users. Its product offers liquidity pools, real-time market-driven pricing and APIs and web/mobile apps supporting currencies including the Nigerian naira, USD, GBP and CAD. Juicyway counts customers such as Bolt, IHS, Piggyvest, Bamboo, Afriex and Mocoh SA and acquired a similar business early in its growth. Revenues come from processing and payment fees with take rates ranging from 0.2% to 10%, and the company expects to generate additional revenue by earning interest on customer balances. To manage regulatory and AML risk it has obtained money-transmitter licenses in the U.S., U.K., Canada and Nigeria, partners with banks and stablecoin infrastructure providers (Access Bank, Bridge, Lead Bank) and uses Sumsub and senior compliance hires for KYC/KYB/KYT.

Participated · Seed · Sep 2023

Itana is developing Africa’s first digital free zone and a virtual city offering free‑zone benefits to digital and service companies. Its initial product, Itana Edge, is a one‑stop online app (compared to Stripe Atlas) that helps international businesses incorporate and access incentives such as taxation, business visas, banking, capital repatriation and supportive legislation via a partnership with the Nigerian government. The startup raised a $2 million pre‑seed to establish the digital free zone and launch its pilot; the funding is intended to improve Nigeria’s ease‑of‑doing‑business, attract FDI and catalyze employment. It plans a pilot with select companies, expects to go live in Q1 2024, and aims to build a 72,000‑square‑meter “Itana District” live‑work‑build campus with phase one complete by 2027. Revenue models include annual subscription business licenses (revenue shared with government), on‑demand services (banking, visas, tax auditing, recruitment, payroll, sector licenses) and minimal transaction fees. The company was founded by CEO Luqman Edu and COO Coco Liu, with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji a founding investor, and intends to scale by expanding services and partnering with other African governments to replicate digital and physical free zones.

Participated · Seed · Jul 2023

gamp is a one-stop shop for device acquisition, device protection plans, trade-ins, repairs, and mobile device management (MDM) solutions across Africa. gamp for Business bundles Device Protection Plans, Lease-to-Own for refurbished and new devices (1–24 months), OEM-certified repairs, trade-ins, and MDM to help employers centralize device procurement and support. The Device Protection Plan covers repair or replacement for breakdown or loss and includes MDM; gamp says the DPP can cut business spending on fixing or replacing devices by up to 90%. The company partners with OEMs, retailers, finance and insurance companies, and offers tiered subscription pricing for protection plans while the platform is free to start. gamp serves thousands of users and businesses, plans to grow over 20x in the next 12 months, and is currently live in Nigeria with expansion plans for francophone and East Africa. In 2022 it raised a $650,000 pre-seed that helped expand talent, develop the platform and validate new customers.

Participated · Series B · Feb 2023

Smile Identity offers a suite of identity-verification products including face verification, liveness checks, document verification, digital KYC, onboarding, anti-fraud checks and identity-data deduplication. The company launched in 2018 and was founded by Mark Straub and William Bares. It has expanded product coverage from ~250 million identities to capabilities the company says can cover over a billion identities and 230 ID types across 100+ countries via its Document Verification product. Smile Identity processed over 30 million identity verifications in 2021 (about half of its ~50 million total checks since inception) and performs roughly 2–2.5 million monthly checks; it serves over 100 businesses across banking, fintech, education, agriculture and e-commerce. The firm says it doubled its client base since 2021 and tripled revenues over the same period. Growth plans include ramping hiring across East, Southern and West Africa, expanding into Francophone and Arab-speaking countries, opening offices (including London and Cape Town) and partnering with ID authorities and governments to support consent standards and data-protection compliance. Smile Identity builds ID verification and KYC compliance tools tailored to African identities using de-biased face recognition, liveness checks and anti-fraud measures. Founded in 2017 by Mark Straub and William Bares, the company matches selfies against identity documents and photos held by ID authorities. It covers more than 250 million identities, supports over 15 ID types, performs over one million identity checks per month and serves about 80 customers charged on a per-query basis. Customers span banking, fintech, ride-sharing, worker verification, public social welfare programs and telecommunications, including Paystack, Paga, Chipper Cash, Kuda, Umba, Stanbic IBTC, Binance, Luno and Paxful. Smile Identity plans to use new funding to improve its services, expand into more markets, add support for additional ID types, and hire more engineers and support staff across Africa. The company is also building compliance templates and product features to help clients meet evolving local data-protection and consent requirements.