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Africa’s abundance of natural resources presents a huge opportunity for developing value chains.
Africa is forecasted to remain the fastest urbanizing region in the world between now and 2050. In tandem, Africa is making a strong play for manufacturing and supply chain opportunities switching from the East to the point that African industries are touted to double production to nearly $1 trillion in the next decade.
Not only is Africa’s population expected to surpass that of China and India in the next 30 years, but also will have the youngest median age of 18 years. That means Africa alone will have a growing amount of young people as consumers and workers for the foreseeable future.
The Tiger and the Dragon have had their days, and now the Lion is roaring.
Over the past 15 years, the economies of at least 6 African countries have outperformed Latin America and developed countries.
The conversation about Africa is shifting from one of “deficits” and “gaps” to one about opportunities, prospects, ventures and creativity.
More African policymakers are now committing to building environment conducive to investment in terms of trade, regulation, political and revenue systems.
From railways, ports, roads, smart cities to free trade zones, these infrastructure mega projects are reshaping Africa.
In the last decade, 51 of the 54 African countries have or are currently undertaking at least 3 national and/or intraregional infrastructure projects. That represents a big opportunity for investors and entrepreneurs with the imagination to help solve Africa’s infrastructure challenges.
China is known for its pragmatism, economic and otherwise and it is playing a strong hand in Africa. China’s amount of foreign direct investment in Africa surged from US$75 million in 2003 to US$ 2.7 billion in 2019.
Google and Facebook are building a 37,000-kilometer long undersea cable around Africa to provide Africa with better internet access. Microsoft South Africa signaled their involvement in Africa by signing a memorandum of understanding with the city of Johannesburg, South Africa to participate in driving the city’s Smart City project. These are just a couple of examples.
In the last decade, Africa has seen an increasing number of African visionaries become millionaires and billionaires in telecom, oil refinery, cement among other investments. Even more are to come.
Investing in early-stage businesses and startups can be very rewarding but comes with its risks and challenges. These risks include equity dilution, illiquidity, loss of investment, and rarity of dividends. This is one of the biggest causes of non-Africa-based investors’ hesitancy to investing in Africa. We designed our platform to minimize some of those risks.
Each fundraising project begins with careful filtration, validation, and goes through a selection process to ensure that only projects with the least amount of risk and highest potential in returns are presented to investors.
For each funded project, we facilitate the establishment of a holding company whose members have access to the reports, audits, and management and may sit on the beneficiary company's board to manage investors' equity.
Most African countries have mechanisms to guarantee the repatriation of investment returns. Nonetheless, an investor-managed U.S-based holding company established for each funded project would be responsible for extracting and distributing capital gains or dividends.
Our model enables each funded project to receive the raised funds as an investment from a single source; therefore removing or limiting any regulatory complications that would normally arise regarding crowdfunding in the beneficiary country.
The big building blocks are now in place. Africa is the beneficiary, but so are the next wave of investors, who will make new fortunes.