The African Pre-seed Podcast

🎙️ This month's episode takes us to Tunisia, speaking to Mariem Sellami, a founder and former program manager at Startup Tunisia to understand what it’s like running a venture in Tunisia. 🇹🇳Like most nascent tech ecosystems, the government plays an important role in the Tunisian ecosystem, with legal frameworks like the Startup Act—passed in 2019—helping founders g

🌍 Creating impact in the African tech ecosystem takes many stakeholders, and while venture dollars might grab the biggest headlines, foundation and impact partners also play a crucial role. You might even argue—correctly—that these impact partners have influenced traditional VC players and shaped how they think about investing on the continent. 🚀 This month’s podcast is

📍 The end of the year's first quarter is typically a time for companies—and their founders—to take stock of what has been accomplished so far. So for public companies, we huddle over investor calls and try to understand performance. For private companies, we hope and pray a media publication somehow finds their numbers and shares them with us. 🎯 For this month’s podcast

💡 Join our host, Loraine Achar, featuring esteemed panelists Bruce Nsereko-Lule (General Partner, Seedstars Africa Ventures), June Odongo (Founder & CEO, Senga Technologies), Jason Musyoka (Chief Financial Officer, Rology), as they go bar-for-bar on the topic of discussion, “The Good and Bad of Funding - Choosing the Right Capital in 2024.” 💸📍 Choosing the right ca

🎙️ In this episode, we talk about how founders can focus on solving real problems instead of building ventures that prioritise fundraising first and solving user pain points second. With fundraising harder and founders finding themselves in a pinch, the macro seems to be exerting overt influence on how founders position and build their businesses. To be clear, there are other

🇿🇦 This month's podcast was recorded at the Africa Early Stage Investor Summit 2023 (AESIS 2023), held in Cape Town between 30 November and 2 December 2023. Featuring sector heavyweights Aly El Shalakany (Advisory Board Member, AESIS), Eleni Gabre-Madhin (Chief Innovation Officer, UNDP Africa), Tracy Kimathi (Founder, BARIDI), Ben White (Director and Founder, VC4A) and Maxime

🎙️ In this month’s podcast, the final one for the year 2023, we talk about how iteration leads to success and also touch on the Zambian tech ecosystem. Gilbert Lungu, the Country Manager for Cellulant, one of Africa’s “OG” fintech startups that has raised $55 million to date. Lungu has the chops to help us understand the Zambian tech ecosystem, having served as Head of

African Pre-seed Podcast S2 Ep8: Investing in Francophone Africa’s tech ecosystem 🎙️ In this month’s episode of the African Pre-seed Podcast, Lorraine Achar speaks to Benoit Delestre, Managing Partner at Saviu Ventures, a venture capital fund that invests in early-stage startups in Francophone Africa. Yep, you read that right… Francophone Africa, a region with 34 countri

African Pre-seed Podcast S2 Ep7: Is Fintech the one true ecosystem vertical? On the 2nd of November, the African Pre-seed podcast partnered with the Africa FinTech Summit in Lusaka, Zambia, to host the first-ever edition of APS Live, where our host, Hope Ditlhakanyane had three amazing guests on the couch in front of a live audience to discuss whether Fintech is indeed the one true

African Pre-seed Podcast S2 Ep6: Passionate Dissent from Ada Ventures with Ebele OkobiIn this exciting podcast episode, Ebele Okobi, Venture Partner at Ada Ventures, shares their journey into the tech ecosystem and their insights on leadership, diversity, and more. As someone with many hats, Ebele speaks about the decisions that founders make that can shape success, creating an atm