Noble Conversations
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Noble Conversations
Africa's $400B Funding Gap: How This Entrepreneur Is Tackling It
$400 billion is a lot of money. That is the amount needed to close the funding gap across critical sectors like energy, agriculture, healthcare, and more in Africa.
What if the solution to this gap was hidden among the 41 million active members of the African diaspora?
In this video, we delve into the story of Joe Kinvi, founder of Borderless and co-founder of HOAQ Venture Capital, who is on a mission to change the narrative.
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Follow Joe Kinvi and his work:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joekinvi/
Borderless Website: https://www.onborderless.com/
HoaQ Website: https://www.hoaq.co/
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This encounter has literally changed the trajectory of my career. We were doing an event at Citibank in 2017, and I came out just hanging in the lobby I met this guy who was telling me about his startup that he's building. Long story short, I joined that company as the CFO for a couple of years. We ended up selling that company to Stripe.
Speaker 2:Going from hook to building part of us. Right, what was the moment where you were like, okay, let's take all we've learned from this to build this?
Speaker 1:I've actually never spoken about this. Maybe I have, but I don't remember speaking about this. As we were driving to the restaurant, out of nowhere, a car turned the corner, hit, and it was at that moment that I started asking myself what do I really want to do with my life? My life could have ended at that moment.
Speaker 3:The African tech ecosystem is evolving fast and few people are shaping its future. Like Joe Kinvey, joe is the founder of Borderless, an all-in-one platform focused on building the infrastructure for communities to launch, invest and scale, with a focus on Africa. He is also the co-founder of Hoke Venture Capital, a 600-member angel investing platform with portfolio companies like Lemphi, steers Business, chowdek, bamboo and Kipper.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Noble Conversations, a platform focused on building the society of our dreams by engaging in dialogue with those who are making community and global impact in areas of advocacy, creativity and entrepreneurship. Now, today's guest, joe Kinvey, is definitely one of those people, and he is the founder of Borderless, which is a platform that helps build the infrastructure to allow communities to, first of all, start, second invest, third, scale globally, and basically he's doing this with a focus on Africa specifically. Now he's also the founder of Hoke VC, which is basically a syndicate of angel investors investing in Africa. Now, join us for another episode of Noble Conversations. So well, first of all, thank you very much for you know, joining here, um, for Noble Conversations. I think it has been a long time coming, and I have been waiting to talk to you just because of the impact that you're making. You know, especially when it comes to African diaspora investment. Um started out with Hoke and then, well, started before that with APNI, right Uh?
Speaker 1:APNI, it was A-P-N-I.
Speaker 2:It was A-P.
Speaker 1:N-I.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, yeah, and then you've done some other stuff, then HOK, and then now you're doing Bordeaux. So I really appreciate you, you know, sitting here to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I know we connected last year right, and I think I was traveling and the time zone just didn't work because I was in East Africa. You were in, like you're in, houston, so but I'm glad thank you for uh following up, because I knew I owed somebody something, uh, so, yeah, no, thank you for for making this happen no, for sure, for sure, um.
Speaker 2:So, now that we have you here, um, I want to, I want to learn about the man behind the impact. So, who is Joe? When it comes to your work, but also when it comes to just you as a person in general?
Speaker 1:I just happen to have grown up in the two smallest countries in Europe and Africa, so from Togo grew up in Ireland. My mom immigrated to Ireland when I was super young and I moved there about 20 years ago. I was it would be 20 years in 2025 by the time it's recording and when I moved to Ireland, I always thought to myself this is it not in the sense that I've made it?
Speaker 1:but like I don't have excuses not to do well yeah um, and as a European country, I realized that Ireland had everything I've always wanted to succeed Good education system, great universities, like unemployment rate were really high and you'd be surprised, as a 15, 16 year old, I was actually thinking of all these things and I yeah, like I just, you know went at every opportunity I can get. I created more for myself. Um, did you know what you're supposed to do? Accounting and finance, got a degree, qualified as an accountant, and I've always wanted to do more um, I didn't know what that was for quite a while, and I think APNI was the start of like more for me.
Speaker 1:I wanted to do things that are bigger than me and I always say that, like you know, wealth creation as much as a lot, of, a lot of us care about it, it's not like the top thing for me. I still want to create a lot of wealth for myself, but I think that doing it with a lot of people is something that is more impactful than just making money for yourself. Like, and I grew up in a big family what that meant was you had to share everything, and me. Sharing is not something that you know, it's something that I'm used to and my parents who, while they didn't have a lot, they still give. My mom is a big giver. I remember I was in Paris for her birthday the other day and she was still helping a couple of relatives on the call while she was getting ready for her birthday. So I grew up in this environment, which is super communal, and I think that has a lot of impact in the work that I've always wanted to do, which is community work, and when you, when you look at how people portray community work, it's always supposed to be something that's of charity you know something that you give and you don't get.
Speaker 1:And when I started doing APNI and APNI today is still a charity Sorry, am I going too far? Oh, no, no, for those that don't know what's APNI, oh yeah, apni stands for African Professional Network of Ireland. It's an organization that we started nine years ago in Ireland and it's a way to empower and connect African professionals in the ecosystem, and we set it up as a charity. But what I got out of AP&I is worth more than what I've put in, not monetarily, but one example I can give you is when we were running AP&I. We started in 2016 and we were doing our events with a ton of like big companies. So like your Google, your Meta, and we're doing an event at Citibank in 2017.
Speaker 1:And, as at this stage, I was still the president of the organization, we're doing a ton of workshops. So, like, I set up the people, put the workshops in different groups and I came out just hanging in the lobby, met this guy who was telling me about his startup that he's building. Long story short, I joined that company as the CFO for a couple of years. We ended up selling that company to Stripe and this encounter has literally changed the trajectory of my career. And that's because of APNI and that's because of the work I was doing at APNI. So, like, I don't think I'd be having this conversation with you today if it wasn't because of APNI.
Speaker 1:And so community work isn't charity and for people who put into it, they will get more. And like I wouldn't be doing Hulk if I didn't do apni and I would definitely not be building borderless if I didn't do hook. So like, there's that ripple effect of how much community has had an impact in my life. And like, while apni was charity, I've gotten so much more out of it. And it's the same thing with Hook, where last week we paid our distribution to a couple of investors who made a lot. Like, well, it's still like it's money. They made eight times the money that invested and, as a result, we also got paid.
Speaker 1:So, like again, it's all community. If they didn't invest, they wouldn't be making money and we wouldn't be making money. So I think we need to rethink what community is and it can do more than we think. And as Africans, we are literally born into communities and that over time we all, you know, move outside and you know, go find different lives for ourselves, often outside of the continent. Go find different lives for ourselves, often outside of the continent. And I think that many people are always like forcing to be part of something, build something. And I think communities can be and have the potential to be, you know, the, the thing that saves africa out of its perils. So I like, sorry, I've, I've gone.
Speaker 2:no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I like that, I like that. So you mentioned that you know, as Africans, we're born into community. So the thing is, some people, you know we're all born into community, but some people choose to build right, while others may not necessarily want to be a part of the building process or, you know, maybe it's just not something that they're looking at for you. Um, what made you want to start building communities? Was that something that was always innate? Maybe you kind of always did that in smaller group sports, or was that just something that developed over time?
Speaker 1:believe it or not, I was. I'm probably the quietest person in my family. I don't know that's why I had to preface believe it or not, I am by far the quietest person in my family, uh, but I'm the first born, um, and naturally you kind of you're still leadership skills. Uh, as the first born, like even even when my younger brother does things these days, my, my dad will call me and be like, why are you not talking to your brother? I'm just like he's not my son, but like as the first, you know right, and as the firstborn, you just have this like I don't want to call it burden, call it burden that's put on you as you're born and you just have responsibilities that you can't shake off.
Speaker 1:And I'm not a perfectionist by any means, but I just like to do things a certain way and I think not being selfish really help the fact that I can build community like and community often feels like a selfless act and it's just hard. But again, as a firstborn, it's something that's instilled in me to be a leader, to take care of your sisters, take care of your brothers. I've got six siblings, three brothers and three sisters. So, as you can imagine, I've always had to lead in some shape or form, and somehow I enjoy it. I'm still here.
Speaker 2:No, that's good, that's good. So I'm also the firstborn oldest. I get you, I get you. There's three of us, three boys.
Speaker 1:Okay. Do your parents call you, when you, when your siblings do something, I call like have you checked on his grades? Have you checked? Yeah, like, why did, why me?
Speaker 1:yeah, so, but I think it's I mean get used to over time, it's just okay yeah and and I think it's also like a trust thing like your parents would not be delegating these responsibilities over to you if they didn't trust that you would do the right thing for your siblings. And like I can proudly say that, like my brother, like amazing, the one that comes right after me, he's doing really well, like the. So I've got three brothers, the three of two of them well, one is working, one is just starting university and the other one is finishing school. And one thing I saw is like I took care of my brother and so my first one is Steven. Steven is taking care of Joshua and Joshua is taking care of Caleb. I'm like, ah, you know what I've done? Well, listen, I think I've delegated really well and it's so good that, like, we all have these connected relationships and I'm grateful that our parents instilled these leadership skills in us and we are in a position to pass it over to our brothers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, definitely, definitely. And then, much like you, I also moved here when I was I think 16. Oh, wow, yes, I moved to the? U. I was, I think, 16. Oh, wow, yes, I moved to the US when I was 16. Very similar story you know. Interested in. You know the opportunities here, education, work, all of that. And one thing you mentioned that I'm also interested in is you said you sold a company to Stripe and that was the beginning of, like your, you know, hulk journey. So how did you go from? Okay, I've proven success in this area too. I want to build for Africa.
Speaker 1:So again, I'm going to mention my parents quite a lot throughout this conversation. My parents have always my mom especially has always believed in me. She always said, ah, he's a very bright child. This son of mine, he's a very clever child and you have to show that you're bright. And over time I worked very hard to prove that my mom is right, that I'm actually a very bright child. I don't think I was born bright, but I worked very hard to prove what my mom has always said about me.
Speaker 2:Why do you say you don't think you were born bright?
Speaker 1:I don't know. I've met a lot of bright people who don't want to put in the work and I don't think being bright is enough and we live in a world where hard work is handsomely rewarded and for people who haven't been rewarded for hard work, you don't know what that is like. And I feel like the work that I you know the Stripe acquisition of the company that I worked at was more like a nail in the coffin. Like I've worked really hard to transition from banking. So I worked in audit, I worked in internal audit at a bank and I just I worked with great people but I didn't really find the work fulfilling and I really wanted to move into tech and I spent like very long days, a lot of weekends, just going through that transition and even when I got to the company called TouchTech Payments, we worked really hard, and not just me, like the founders. We grinded it out and I feel like the reward of all our hard work was the acquisition and like good work always gets rewarded, whether it's financially, monetarily, like no good work goes to waste and for us the icing on the cake was that acquisition, um, so like got to touch tech head of finance, did the whole thing. We've worked like so many weekends, so many evenings, and there was no complaints and we all just cared about doing the good work. And after the sale after you know, some of us like all of us made some money.
Speaker 1:I got to Stripe and this is where I met a guy called Nubi K and he started pitching me the whole idea of, oh, investing in Africa, this whole thing. The whole idea of oh, investing in Africa, this whole thing. And Yubi has a background. He was a founder in Nigeria. His company didn't work out and then he moved to Ireland to study entrepreneurship. Don't ask me, he did it the wrong way, but he did it. And we just started brainstorming about this idea.
Speaker 1:Like I wrote this time five years ago, this HOAQ, when he told me the name'm just like you're on the call, right, I'm like guy, this name is so stupid. Well, how about I got it? The name come about it like what's. I don't know, but hoaq stands for half of a quarter and half of a quarter, supposedly. Well, I actually read about it, which is back in the 70s. 12.5% was reserved for angel investors and 12.5% is half of a quarter, and that's where the name Hulk came from. That's it. That's the reaction I get every single time we tell people. So Hulk is essentially a community of angel investors. That's it.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So he pitched me the idea. Newbie has experience doing stuff in africa. I knew nothing about doing anything in africa, but I have, like I was qualified, I was qualified account, I was a qualified accountant, I, you know, I knew about finance, so he has some experience, I have some experience and we just complemented each other really well. On top of that, we both cared about Africa and we're both very hardworking and we religiously met every Saturday for a very long time and we started pitching the idea to people which is hey, we want to invest in Africa. We haven't done it before, but we want to do alongside people. We want to set up this thing that they call syndicates. Didn't know anything about syndicates, but again, the the core premise of what we're doing is pulling capital together to invest in early stage startups. That's it. And like we started joining other syndicates, um, and I wanted to realize that a lot of them, what we were doing didn't really align with how we want to operate. So our thesis was collect all the money, invest as much of it as possible, and we don't want to pay a lot of fees. We wanted to be community run and we wanted to be all about the founders. So we joined like a couple of syndicates I probably don't need to mention, and I always realized that you know what we think we can run this by ourselves. And, oh boy, running syndicates sounded easy on paper. But when you are Togolese living in Ireland wanting to invest in a Nigerian company that has a Delaware corp, good luck, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1:And we went to the bank and we wanted to open a bank account. They're like invest in Africa, what is this? What sort of fraud is this? We couldn't get a bank account and we didn't really know the sort of paperwork that could work. For you know what we wanted to do and we got lucky. Wise gave us an account and that allowed us to essentially just start running taking money from people, because for like, maybe the first two, three deals, all the money went into Newbie's account and the bank started flagging his account to be like what sort of fraud are you doing with all this money?
Speaker 1:And this problem persists today for a lot of people who are running syndicates and we essentially want to build technology to solve that problem, and part of that technology is we'll give you accounts where you can collect from your members and what that means is the money will not be going to your personal account, and whenever you're ready to make the investment, we'll deploy it on your behalf. We'll help you with all the paperwork and whenever you're ready to make the investment, we'll deploy on your behalf. We'll help you with all the paperwork and, ultimately, with Borderless. What we're building now is take all the learnings from the past five years and all the conversation that we had with over 60 community managers and turn that into technology to enable syndicate managers, investment community managers, to build something without the hassle.
Speaker 1:That shouldn't be hassled, like opening a bank account for your syndicate should not be a hassle. Doing KYC should not be a hassle. The hardest part of this entire process is how do you get people to trust that you're going to find the right deals. You're going to send the money to the companies or to the asset that the money is supposed to go to the companies or to the asset that the money is supposed to go to. And we don't think that syndicate managers, investment community managers, just because they're not, you know, from the UK, investing in UK companies with UK investors, they should invest Like. I think everybody should have an opportunity to invest in what they believe in, and borderless will enable that for the African diaspora in what they believe in and borderless will enable that for the African diaspora.
Speaker 2:I think that's a good segment because or segue, because I wanted to ask you you know, going from Hoke to building borderless right what was the moment where you were like, okay, let's take all we've learned from this to build this? Working on this for what? 12 months about approximately, or?
Speaker 1:two years, two years, two years, yeah. So August 2022. I came to London, went to Carnival. You've been to Carnival? No, I haven't, but I've seen. I know what it's like. Yeah, great vibes. I went with my friend Patricia. We had a good time and we had two friends who came to pick us up. So the two of us were drinking and two of our friends who, of course, were not drinking drove to come and pick us up and, as we were driving to the restaurant, stopped at a traffic light I've actually never spoken about this, maybe I have, but I don't remember speaking about this Came to the traffic light Out of nowhere, a car turned the corner, hit us and our car traveled about 100 meters.
Speaker 1:All four of us were shaking and, as I was, struggling to get out of the car, any injuries and as I was struggling to get out Any injuries Well, like nothing, that is, like you know, because good news we all had our seatbelts on, so we were all like quite shaken, waiting for the ambulance to come and take us to the hospital. All of us were discharged the same evening, which is, you know, good news. But when I came back so at this time I was staying with my mom in Paris and I was planning to move to London um, so I came to London, the plan was go to Carnival, go get my national NI, which is my, like what I document. I need to work here and, as a nourished citizen, I didn't need any visas or anything. So, so like it was quite an easy thing. Except my move to London was delayed a couple of months because I was off work for about a month and I was just staying at home with my mom like getting the treatments I needed over this because of this car accident.
Speaker 1:And it was at that moment that I started asking myself what do I really want to do with my life? And my life could have ended at that moment, all our lives. There are four of us in the car and I'm like what do I really, really really care about? I care about Hulk, I care about Hulk a lot. I care about Africa a lot, I care about Hulk a lot, I care about Africa a lot, and there are so many problems that have been around before you and I were born and this problem somehow persists today and we have the biggest organizations that are actively, actively trying to solve this African problem that is still not solved.
Speaker 1:And the vision, as I just actually had nothing to do for a month and I started thinking, like all these things that I care about, I care about how can I turn into something that's much bigger than me? And that's where the idea of borderless came about. Back then it wasn't called borderless, it was called platform, and we want to essentially solve the rails issue or the problems that we had for Hoke with technology. But also, with that same technology, we can enable other syndicates that have the same problem as us to run more efficiently. And because we really cared about funneling as much capital to Africa, we can now do that at scale and, having worked at companies like Paystack and Stripe, we've seen the impact of technology at a world scale. And, yeah, that's where the idea came.
Speaker 1:I went to Dublin. A newbie was living in Dublin back then. I went to Dublin in November 2022, and I'm like grand vision. And I pitched him. I'm like I love this, I believe in this so much and I had like a ton of stuff written and I told him I was going to quit my job. He's like, are you sure? Like, yeah, I'm going to quit my job and yeah, I quit my job in March 2023 to do this full time.
Speaker 2:So basically, Borderless is the infrastructure that allows communities to launch and scale, but also invest in Africa.
Speaker 1:invest in Africa yes, starting with Africa, but then again, like when two or three of us want to invest in the UK in the future, we want to enable borderless to do that, and the name borderless came from like, so back then we called it a platform and I kept pitching platform as a borderless platform.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I was like I keep using this borderless, borderless, borderless. You know what, let's go get it. So, before even I pitched it to newbie, I was like I think we should change the name. You know, because I keep using borderless, borderless, and they're like you know what do you want to change it to? Let's say, borderless. Do you have the domain? Yes, of course I have the domain. Well, I don't have borderlesscom, but I have on borderlesscom.
Speaker 1:And the idea is communities can come and build on borderless and through that we want to enable discovery, so anybody can log on to borderless and discover communities. That will serve, as you know, a way for community managers to acquire new customers and a way for community managers to acquire new customers. And we can do so much more. And if you ask my girlfriend, it's all I talk about. I believe in it so much and I believe that while individually we might not be able to achieve great things, collectively we can do so much together.
Speaker 1:Let me run you through the numbers um, the gdp of the average. Uh, the gdp of the gdp per capita. Uh, the highest gdp per capita for an african country, I think it's like 22, 23 000, I think that is. It's in mauritius it's one of the isles Seychelles. Seychelles has the highest GDP per capita of Africa.
Speaker 1:When you take the African diaspora and essentially you look at the countries that they go to, they go to France, they go to the US, they go to Canada, they go to the UK and then they go to Germany.
Speaker 1:Those are the top five countries that Africans tend to immigrate to. When you take the GDP of those countries, it's much, much higher. And what I did was I took it and then I got, like I did, an average divided by five to essentially see okay, can we use this as a proxy for the GDP per capita for the African diaspora? And the reason why we can do that is because these days, these countries will not welcome you unless you can earn a bare minimum, which is usually higher than the minimum wage in these countries. The UK has it, germany has it and, using this data, realize that the GDP per capita of the African diaspora is above $25,000. And what that means is, if Africa was a, if the African diaspora was a country in Africa, it would be the country with the highest GDP per capita. And when you look at the number, the active African diaspora, the number of those is 41 million people African diaspora the number of those is 41 million people.
Speaker 1:So when you look at my pitch deck as I'm fundraising now is, if just each one of those people can invest $1,000 a year, we can now invest $41 billion in Africa every year and over a period of 10 years, we can now finally close the funding gap, which is $402 billion.
Speaker 2:That's what the supposed funding gap that exists in Africa. Was it $4 billion in VC?
Speaker 1:Yes, okay, yeah. $4 billion, that's nothing yeah.
Speaker 2:That's nothing, and that's across the continent.
Speaker 1:it's not even just yes and like, when you look at, they're not. Like ireland gets more funding. Ireland is a country of five million people. That country gets more funding than the entire continent of Africa. The GDP of Africa is the same as the GDP of the UK.
Speaker 1:We are so far behind when you look at the numbers and we need to take drastic measures because what has been tried and tested has failed and that's why I'm so passionate about borderless. And when I was watching your interview with Ece, I think three years ago, I'm like this guy's crazy. Ece is not crazy. Like Ece is not crazy. So for anybody watching this, ece is the founder of a company called Afropolitan and he's on a mission to build the first online country and he's not crazy. We need drastic measures to solve the problems of Africa because the current solutions are just not working and we can start with funding and the African diaspora can actually play its role in solving this problem. And I just give you the numbers. It's like's like, you know, we can solve this in 10 years. 10 years is nothing.
Speaker 1:I remember 10 years ago, it was 2015 yeah we can solve this problem and I believe in it, and I think technology will play a big role in solving it, and I plan to dedicate at least 10 years of my career solving this no, no, no, that's, that's.
Speaker 2:That's because, if you think about it like, you mentioned that well, the 4 billion right, that's something that's like one country alone like could receive in terms of funding. Yes, I don't think people realize that. That's not, that, that's nothing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And when you look at the, I don't think people realize that that's nothing, yeah. And when you look at the so the measure is very focused on venture capital. There's actually more debt capital that goes to the continent than venture. More people should be asking questions why are we pushing this venture asset class when more debt capital goes to the continent? I went to a money point event when they raised the money last year and they were talking about their lending products and one of the guys they're like the payback rate is so high we don't think we're taking enough risk. I I think it's like in the high 90s.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And I know some VCs that make so much money on venture debt that they don't even talk about it. So like sometimes it feels like there's something that they're not telling us. And when you spend more time in Africa, you realize that venture is great, but venture doesn't work for 99% of the African companies I interact with.
Speaker 2:Why? Why is that? Because?
Speaker 1:for venture to work, you need to create proprietary technology. So Apple back in eighties well, like Microsoft, these are novel, groundbreaking technologies that didn didn't exist before and because they exist, like the world is a much better place. Name one company. Maybe you probably can name one name one company that has created some novel technology in africa, in I don't know. Maybe you can say in pesa, when pesa is like privatized, I I don't think Safaricom received any VC money. We haven't created any novel technology and the VC is supposed to fund these groundbreaking tech.
Speaker 1:So OpenAI was the most recent one that has literally transformed how we think about AI, one that has literally transformed how we think about AI. And when you go to Twitter now, the AI wars and deep seek and all these things are ongoing. Like open, ai literally opened a brand new category that did not exist five years ago. Africa doesn't have any of this tech, and what that means is what we have is a lot of tech-enabled startups that still need. They need venture, but they don't need as much venture as like. Openai raised what is it? 6 billion Billion Last year.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's more than the entire continent. It's like 2x how much Africa received last year. That's one company Name, a company in Africa that can actually consume that much capital. There aren't any, especially companies that can consume VC capital. But when you look around across most African economies, a lot of the people are. They're like SMEs, msmes, and everybody's hustling and the hustle is literally they buy something, they sell it, they make some money on it. The majority of the continent is still trading and it's like very, very basic trading and debt capital is great for this, because you need money to buy the thing, sell it, you make some money back, you pay the person who gives you the money.
Speaker 1:Um, and while people like me like I, borderless is not a groundbreaking technology yes, we're writing code, but a lot of the work it's. It's tech enabled. Like you can run a syndicate without tech and we just proved that in like last year when we launched diaspora house. That's where house is not used in technology and you can just connect things. But when you want to run 100, 1000 communities at once and you want them to talk to each other, then borderless will finally become useful and we're actually getting ahead of that to build it now and like borderless will finally become useful and we're actually getting ahead of that. To build it now and like borderless would be great to scale the future of syndicates and communities.
Speaker 1:It's not the product and I think we've been conflating product and technology for a long time and once we start decoupling that we'll realize that. You know, vc is not where we should be focused on our effort. It's needed, like pay stack needed vc to get to where it needed to go. Some companies still need vc. I am raising vc capital but like it'll get to a stage where we should be making enough money that vc will not be necessary. But will we create an open ai? Definitely not not. And the sooner we realize this, I think the continent will finally be on the right trajectory.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about AI, so do we have to? So, you know, we saw the news with DeepSeek and how they're able to, you know, basically use less than I believe. You know, we saw the news with DeepSeek and how they're able to, you know, basically use less than I believe 10 million, which is, you know, compared to OpenAI 100 million. It's supposed to be fake news, bro. Oh, it's supposed to be fake news. It's supposed to be, oh, okay, okay, yeah Well, however much they used right, used right, but basically, the speed you know, the quality, you know, assuming they use less money meaning it's more capital efficient, first of all, like.
Speaker 2:does this have any impact on like borderless in the sense that is, ai, something that borderless is looking at? And you know what does this mean for Africa first, and then what does it mean for Borderless?
Speaker 1:I think I had a conversation with Ian at the Aboeji last week and, I think, african startups. So two great things that has happened to us. The first one is the internet and the second was the AI. With the internet, I can now hire, sitting in London, hire the best of talent in Africa. The second one is with AI, we can do more with less.
Speaker 1:Any company that's not leveraging AI is going to fall behind, unless you're literally building bricks. But AI is not again the product. Ai should be leveraged as an enabler and I think more and more people will be using AI, especially in places like Africa, to build million-dollar businesses like real, fully functioning businesses, without a need to hire 50 people. But what that means is, now that we're not hiring 50 people, there's going to be a lot of opportunities that are created, for example, when you so with diaspora house, which is the new community that we launched and that would be leveraged in borderless, we're're going to use AI for all the bookings. That means that we don't need to hire anybody who will run the back office, but what that means is the more property we acquire. You're still going to need cleaners, plumbers, you know people checking people in chefs, etc. So, with AI, while we are able to acquire 50 properties quite effortlessly, you're still going to need people to run the operation. So, while we might not be hiring X amount of people, food still needs to be cooked, you know, plumbers need to fix things, check-ins need to happen.
Speaker 1:So more jobs will be created. And it's the same thing that happened when we got the pc everybody oh the pc is going to take our jobs. New jobs will be created. So we should not worry about oh ai taking jobs, because new jobs will be created. And when you look at africa I love, love spending time in Africa and you'll see that we still have a lot of infrastructure to build and we cannot be leveraging AI when the infrastructure is not there. So, like, please start using AI. But also, we have a lot of infrastructure to build and this is why I describe borderless as the infrastructure for the African diaspora or the asset manager for the diaspora, because borderless should exist. It should exist, even if it's not me building it. This thing should exist and I just selfishly think I'm probably the best person to build this.
Speaker 2:I mean you probably are. So there was something you mentioned in one of your newsletters I think it's recent actually you said that African startups at the seed stage tend to die because of you know that state is where you need a mixture of arts, which is a storytelling side, but also traction, and they tend to struggle with one of the two, right? So meaning that they're not able to get to Series A or raise Series A because they've not been able to prove that. And even if they succeed at that stage, currency devaluation and all those things makes it difficult for them to even be investable. So, considering that you know Borderless is raising, I believe, seed right now, right, Pre-seed, oh, pre-seed, Okay, okay.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So how are you thinking about that problem and how do you plan to approach it with Borderless?
Speaker 1:I am cautiously optimistic as a founder and, yeah, if you're watching this video, hopefully my fundraise is closed by then. But as of right now, I'm still fundraising. I'm raising capital essentially to get a product out and hire a channel so that we can do that quicker. I am thinking about this from again like being cautiously optimistic, but the sooner I can I will be cashflow positive. Cashflow positivity means that I'm making more every month than I'm spending.
Speaker 1:If you can just do that without even doing your books I recommend people doing their books your company will stay alive for the longest possible. That's why we call default alive. So even if you don't raise any more money and raising money should not be the first way to run your business you should be making more money than you're spending. Those are like economics 101. If you can do that, then your business will stay alive. And my goal as soon as I can, is to be default alive and not have to run out of money and having to be at the mercy of investors and all that kind of stuff, and I will probably raise more money again for scale, but like it's actually easier to raise money when you have money because investors they are, you know, evaluating risks and they rather give money to companies. That has a lot of it. That's why OpenAI can raise 6 billion, true, and the more money my company can make, even without technology, like I will push there, staying alive is the most important thing for any company. So if you're an african company or an african building outside of africa, please just figure out how to make more money that you're spending. It's like basic commerce, basic economics and, yeah, like I think we need every business founder need to like think 12 months, 24 months, five years down the line, but really and truly, when you're in it, it's so hard to think that far right, um, and I think we need to rethink what funding looks like for companies like Borderless people who are building in Africa, and founders need to always put their best foot forward and just realize that, hey, you just have to.
Speaker 1:I'm going to use the word thug it out, but the article is not finished. I think there's so much that can go into it and I'm really trying to write, you know, around a thousand words. Most of my articles are around that. This one is, I think, 1200. And there's just so much that I see on a daily basis Like I want to write about the people that I interviewed today, bro, like the talent Chef Kiss. People that I interviewed today, bro, like the talent chef kiss, um, and there's so much that we can write for ourselves, but also for people who were founders, want to be founders, and just for them to be aware of, like, how to navigate this process.
Speaker 1:There's no playbook. Most of the time, uh, in places like the U S, a lot, lot, a lot has been tried and tested in africa, not so much and my the work, what I write at, uh, on my, on my newsletter, which is for builders, on beehive, is mostly for myself, but also for me just to share my reflection on the things that I've learned and there's so much that, uh, I want share. But, yeah, the article is not finished. The funding for founders in Africa will remain fluid, but I think there is excellent, there are excellent founders in our ecosystem that deserve backing and we should just take the chance of them. Like, we have to take the risk. No risk, no rewards, and I believe that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, definitely, definitely. So basically, that problem we would say could be solved by focusing on making sure that the cash flow is coming in primarily before you know. Yes, you could still look for VC, but focusing on making sure that that cash flow is coming in primarily before you know. Yes, you could still look for VC, but focusing on making sure that that revenue is coming in For sure. Okay, okay, no, definitely. Let's switch to. You know I want to talk about the VC landscape and your outlook on the Africa VC landscape. So you mentioned that debt. You know there's more venture debt than people talk about. Do you see that continuing to be the case in the future or do you see it balancing out pure venture and then venture debt?
Speaker 1:I think we're going to see more and more instruments. The challenge with debt in Africa is our interest rates are so high that unless you're raising local capital, it can turn out to be very expensive and you know it can kill your business. But that doesn't mean that you know debt is not there. There's a lot of debt capital in Africa. Yeah, we're going to see more innovative forms of finance.
Speaker 1:I don't know how well invoice factoring works on the continent. That's a business model that I learned about, like when I was in Ireland, maybe like five years ago, and I haven't seen much of it. And I think, again, with technology, we're going to see a lot of innovation happening and we're already seeing it. It's just that it's not talked about as much because it's not sexy or it's not VC. I think in the wider tech ecosystem, we're going to see more and more founders build for the world. So like somebody who is building a startup out of Nigeria, because now that we have internet, we have the rails, it can sell to anywhere in the world with one tick, and companies like Paystack, stripe, you know, bridge recently acquired and a lot of companies are enabling that, and we're going to see a lot of global Move yeah, move yeah, move yeah. Move just expanded to Brazil and Lemphi just bought an Irish company, like this morning, yesterday, like big flex, seriously. So I see, I'm sorry I see more of that happening more regularly.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing I don't know what part of the call you joined earlier, but we also talked about the predictions. In the ecosystem, I see a lot of African companies enabling international companies' expansion, and this is the merch on the right here play, which is you know, I don't want to go set up in 54 countries, but can I work with fintech? That will be my merchant record on the ground. It's only going to get bigger and now that stable coin is finally coming mainstream, merchant record as a business is only going to get bigger. And yeah, we're we're gonna see like a lot of companies moving from africa to like the uk, to france, and and also we're gonna see a lot of boring businesses.
Speaker 1:And I think one of the questions that he sent me is like you know which company do I like? And it's um, you know that call front, we'll get there. We'll get there. But yeah, we're gonna see a lot of boring businesses that just work like there's something sexy about businesses that you don't even know exists, but they run smooth like butter, and I am excited about these businesses because those are the ones I want to invest in or I want my community to invest in. We're also seeing a lot of like. We're seeing funding go into other spaces. That's not tech. For example, at the time of this recording, we're exploring an investment in a basketball company in Africa, and that's yeah. Did I mention that?
Speaker 2:No, no you haven't mentioned it yet, but tell us more so you know the NBA.
Speaker 1:They have a franchise called NBA Africa, which raised money I think it was last year, the year before at a $1 billion valuation and the aim is to essentially expand nba across africa and there's a lot of companies that were part of what you call basketball africa league, bal, and this company that would that we're looking at. They just go into the bal and they will be one of the companies as part of the this, this franchise. What that means is just the way vc is investing basketball companies in the us. You're gonna see a lot of capital go into this space. Uh, in africa we're we're looking at a company in kenya and I'm like what that means is sports is gonna receive a lot of investment. Entertainment is gonna get a lot of investment. Media is gonna get a lot of investment. Media is going to get a lot of investment.
Speaker 1:And guess who are the curators of culture? Black people. We are the curator of culture and it's not talked about enough. Like, go to Spotify top 100. You'll see that the people who are making moves, most of them are African. A lot of them are from Nigeria, south Africa, across the entire continent. We are so talented and it's only time that it's. It's now time that we fund our talents. It's a basketball, it's a music. What is it that we need to be funding? Because when we fund them, that money stays on the continent.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:But when we keep taking external capital, when people make money, they take the money Right, but when we keep taking external capital, when people make money, they take the money back out. We need the money to stay in Africa, and if it's not stay in Africa, at least let it stay in Africans hands.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right, so I'm, I am the more time I spend in Africa. I'm seeing that yo, like, we've, we've been at this thing like, but we're not capitalizing on being the curator of culture and it's time, and we can't capitalize unless we're backing it, and backing financially. So, like, for me, everything goes back to investments. The more you invest on the continent, the more talents will be nurtured, and when these talents are nurtured, they become bigger and you know they pay you back and we'll make some money so it sounds like the ways, or at least your outlook on the african vc startup landscape is one afric Africans will start building more for the world as opposed to Africa.
Speaker 2:Two, seems like we'll still see venture debt, you know, playing a role. Three, we also have we'll see more like borrowing businesses, more smooth running businesses as opposed to like unicorns and stuff. And four, we'll see more investment in spaces that are not tech, like entertainment media, you know sports, like you mentioned, right, yeah, okay, that's that's it. Okay, no, that's good, that's good, that's good. So we're going to move to my favorite segment, which is the rapid fire segment. So, basically, I will ask you a question and you just answer as quickly as possible.
Speaker 1:One sentence, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one sentence Boom, boom, boom. Okay, one startup in Africa you think more people should be paying attention to.
Speaker 1:Clever.
Speaker 2:What does Clever do, sorry?
Speaker 1:Clever allows people to. It's a fintech founded by a lady called Tolu she used to be at Stripe, also a Hoke investor and Clever allows people to get USD bank accounts and it sounds basic but it works. Like I pay all my employees through Clever. It works and Tolu is amazing. Tolu is, yeah, tolu. If you're watching this, you know big fan. Yeah, and she's not my portfolio company, by the way, so okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:And then what's a mistake you see too many founders making?
Speaker 1:not raising enough money, although it slightly contradicts part of my writing. But like get the money first, worry about the rest later. Like money solves so many problems now, not all problems, but yeah, people are not raising enough money yeah, okay, very good.
Speaker 2:And then if you had 10 seconds to pitch why Africa is the best place to build right now, what would you say?
Speaker 1:we're the curator of culture, coming back it nice, nice, nice and then.
Speaker 2:Okay, this might actually be similar to the first question, but what's the best fintech innovation we've seen in Africa so far?
Speaker 1:Come on, you know the answer it's M-Pesa. Have you used M-Pesa?
Speaker 2:I haven't, I haven't used it.
Speaker 1:Bro, M-Pesa just works, man. That's why you don't hear anybody flexing fintech in Kenya or in East Africa. This thing works and like it's everywhere. It's on your phone, it's on your brick phone. It works Like M-Pesa is such a flex. Shout out to the Kenyans, my people.
Speaker 2:Nice, nice, nice, m-pesa. Okay, and then, what's something you wished people knew about you that they don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm more of an introvert than you think and I like silence. My girlfriend was traveling in December and I had a house to myself for two weeks. I enjoyed it so much. I had so much fun.
Speaker 2:I feel you Okay, okay, and then where can you know our audience find you and engage in or with what you're building, specifically Borderless?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, borderless, you can go to wwwonborderlesscom. All one word. Um, I'm jokingly literally on all my socials, um, at least the public ones. Um, yes, uh, jokingly on twitter. I am super active on linked, so please do follow me. And I write on, um. On Beehive, it's for builders, uh, for buildersbeehivecom. And yeah, I live in London. I never said no to coffee. Um, yeah, you know you can, we can go for coffee. I like talking about Africa, as you can tell, and I like being in Africa and I like building for Africa. And yeah, like I just Africa to the world, straight up.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. We love that. We love that. Drew, thank you so much for joining us. I think the past hour and maybe five, 10 minutes have been amazing, so I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean any opportunity to talk about Africa and borderless. You'll always find me so well. Thank you for your time, and I'm glad we finally made this in this very nice and cozy and comfortable studio that you booked for me. Yeah, no, I really like this. I want to see more of this and please let's stay in touch.
Speaker 2:For sure, for sure, we'll do, we'll do. Guys, come here, let's talk, let's talk, let's talk. If you've made it this far, you know that that was not just another podcast episode. That was a masterclass on the state of the African venture capital and startup landscape, but also an outlook into its future. Joking we dropped so many gems and I'm still trying to process it myself. Let's break it down.
Speaker 2:There are four main things I took away from my conversation with Joe. One more African startups will build to solve solutions for the world and not just Africa. Two, more African startups will take venture debt, as opposed to traditional venture capital funding. Three, we're going to see more boring but smooth, profitable, successful businesses, as opposed to unicorns. Four, the African diaspora can help close the funding gap when it comes to venture capital in Africa. Now Drew is tackling this by building the infrastructure to allow communities to launch, invest and scale in Africa through his company, borderless. Now, this is what Noble Conversations is about sparking dialogue around topics like this, but also mobilizing for action. So Joe is raising a pre-seed fund for his startup, borderless, and if you're interested in learning more about what he's doing and what he's up to, feel free to reach out to me or you can reach out to him on his socials. Joe Kinby on LinkedIn Believe. Same thing on Instagram.