[Music]
good evening
I’d like you to indulge me for a moment
by closing your eyes all eyes closed I’d
like you to imagine a unicorn do you see
it what does it look like you don’t have
to tell me we’ll come to it by the way a
unicorn in start-up lexicon is a company
that’s valued at over a billion u.s.
dollars now my name is Colin ax and I’m
the son of an African serial
entrepreneur as far back as I can
remember my siblings and I had a front
row seats watching our dad go through
several intrapreneurial adventures from
Dublin in the beverage industry in the
80s to building a finance company that
gave small loans to businesses before
the financial crisis of the 90s from
rearing cattle he actually read cattle
like we had a huge ranch right to build
in one of the most loved daily brands in
northern Nigeria and finally he tried
bottling water water guys like free
water and then eventually built a pretty
successful public printing and
publishing business my dad worked really
hard he was a hustler he never gave up
he always tried something new and so I
was privileged to have a firsthand
immersive experience into building a
startup at a very early age our home was
the perfect start of foundry and so I
learned very early but to build a
successful business you had to work
really hard and you had to be gritty
ironically despite raising us in this
really
tense enterpreneur entrepreneurial
environment my parents somehow felt
expected that I will fit into the
preconceived mold of sliding into taking
over a family business as you would
imagine this didn’t work out very well
so at the age of 25 with my engineering
degree my MBA and some experienced
corporate experience I essentially
walked away from the chance of leaving a
very secure safe life as my parents had
imagined I’d rather chose to take my
chance in life by finding my own way
what is he thinking some said my mind
was made up for some reason I was
completely sold out to this idea that
the only life worth living was one where
you dance to your own music and so I
decided that I was going to do something
that would allow me solve lots of
problems it also couldn’t cost a lot of
money because I didn’t have any and of
course I couldn’t go back to my parents
because I told them excel Avista but
more importantly it had to lay the
foundation for becoming an enabler of
other people because I had discovered
early on that this was the purpose of my
life and so I decided I was going to do
technology I was going to build software
but I was just one problem I couldn’t
write a line of code and so I began to
search for a co-founder and eventually
chuka and I studied our software company
and somehow decided that we were going
to take on the challenge of Nigeria and
so I moved back and started from the
bottom bootstrapping the company one
customer to the next way before startup
investing became as cool as it is today
many years later my focus has now moved
from building the software company for
myself to helping others build
the companies of their dreams through
our early-stage venture fund co ventures
platform so allow me to reintroduce
myself my name is Colin ax and I’m a
builder my mansions in the forms of
people and their ideas today I am
focused on building platforms platforms
that build community platforms that
enable sharing and platforms that invest
in young people to create opportunities
adventures platform we are enabling the
youth of the continent to turn the
lemons we’ve been handed in to lemonade
and in the last two years we’ve invested
in 22 companies we’ve interacted with
over 2,000 founders we’ve trained about
3,000 young people we’ve built a pretty
amazing campus and we’ve seen our
portfolio do multiples in returns it
doesn’t end there we’ve also served a
couple thousand cups of coffee because
coffee of course is the fuel of the
future and we are just getting started
you see when I was 13 I had a pretty bad
accident and lost my memory I never
really regained full capacity of it so
you will have to forgive me if I forget
your first name after the first time we
meet I have a hack for that though so
over the years I have focused on
optimizing my memory for the pleasant
past experiences of my life and I tend
to rely on others to remind me of the
negatives when it becomes important I
also tend to rely on technology a lot to
invite me remind me of the critical data
points like birthdays meetings and
telephone numbers fortunately it sounds
terrible but this disability works out
pretty well actually
having very little recollection of the
negative experiences of the past
essentially makes me an incurable
optimist and for this I am eternally
grateful and so despite all that is
wrong with and in Africa all I see are
silver linings today more than ever
young Africans are building the future
and indeed they are the silver lining
that is why my team and I are committed
to building the future of the continent
by investing capital I’m providing the
much-needed supports to 100 startups
over the next four years and so while my
dad raised cattle many years ago today
we support a company like thrive agric
funded by two young men
Luca and I Oh Luca Pharma IO a software
engineer who are using technology to
connect smallholder farmers with
resources and helping to increase the I
yield fourfold and while I passed on the
opportunity to step into the easy shoes
of taking over the family printing
business today we now support Prince
evil funded by Alou yummy who’s building
the future of digital printing in Africa
but there’s more much more than I can
mention shall of a stock and in your
flora wave a building payments
infrastructure empowering billions of
dollars in transaction
Kendyl of chizetti recently raised 2.3
million dollars to connect more people
to the internet more affordably and the
lovely a foie who you just met was just
in this stage is the empowering woman
all over the continent
building a community of hundreds of
thousands of young women proving that
what a man can do a woman can do this
ladies are slaying
all over the continent young Africans
are exhibiting curiosity empathy and
urgency at an unprecedented level and in
doing so they are solving real problems
but there just isn’t enough African
capital to support them in 2016
African startups raised about 400
million dollars to build the future the
reality though is most of this capital
comes from foreign investors and we’re
not complaining as a matter of fact we
want more but that a few questions that
keep me up at night the first one is who
will own our future unicorns and more
specifically how do we get Africans at
home of means and those of you in this
room in the Diaspora
to get involved and invest in more of
these companies the future of Africa
will not be built by governments or
grants but by entrepreneurs who leverage
technology to build and scale businesses
fast but building his future requires
capital and in increasing numbers
African capital capital with context and
empathy capital on a mission your
capital it turns out that early-stage
technology investing in Africa can
actually be a great bet so if you had
put money in and Ella and Ella by the
way is a software talent accelerator if
you have put money in and Ella in the
early days you would have made 10x on
your investment iroko TV the African
Netflix if invested when they started
today you would have actually made three
thousand two cents bye guys three
thousand percent ladies and gentlemen in
the beginning I asked you to close your
eyes and thankfully some of
you did let me guess what kind of
unicorn you saw was it white blond head
well let’s try something different
picture a unicorn that’s black with a
afropunk braids maybe picture a unicorn
that kicks and hustles when he doesn’t
get the food it deserves in this in this
case cash right
and that gallops in celebration when it
does ladies and gentlemen my name is
Kalina
and I’m an African investor we are
invested in the future of Africa because
we believe that with the right support
gritty african founders would solve the
toughest problems on the continent will
create new markets will expand existing
markets and deliver value for themselves
and their investors
I believe that Africa will produce
unicorns and the time to get in on the
ground floor is now and so I invite you
to put your capital to good use now I’m
not oblivious to the fact that the
continent suffers a bad media rap
neither am i unaware that we have
insufficient stories of success I mean I
just told you to write I could have try
to tell you some more next time we also
suffer a host of individual biases but I
asked you to bill to be like me for a
moment and lose your memory of that past
but rather imagine a brighter African
future a future that you and I can build
together a future that you can invest in
join us as we build the future of Africa
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
good evening
I’d like you to indulge me for a moment
by closing your eyes all eyes closed I’d
like you to imagine a unicorn do you see
it what does it look like you don’t have
to tell me we’ll come to it by the way a
unicorn in start-up lexicon is a company
that’s valued at over a billion u.s.
dollars now my name is Colin ax and I’m
the son of an African serial
entrepreneur as far back as I can
remember my siblings and I had a front
row seats watching our dad go through
several intrapreneurial adventures from
Dublin in the beverage industry in the
80s to building a finance company that
gave small loans to businesses before
the financial crisis of the 90s from
rearing cattle he actually read cattle
like we had a huge ranch right to build
in one of the most loved daily brands in
northern Nigeria and finally he tried
bottling water water guys like free
water and then eventually built a pretty
successful public printing and
publishing business my dad worked really
hard he was a hustler he never gave up
he always tried something new and so I
was privileged to have a firsthand
immersive experience into building a
startup at a very early age our home was
the perfect start of foundry and so I
learned very early but to build a
successful business you had to work
really hard and you had to be gritty
ironically despite raising us in this
really
tense enterpreneur entrepreneurial
environment my parents somehow felt
expected that I will fit into the
preconceived mold of sliding into taking
over a family business as you would
imagine this didn’t work out very well
so at the age of 25 with my engineering
degree my MBA and some experienced
corporate experience I essentially
walked away from the chance of leaving a
very secure safe life as my parents had
imagined I’d rather chose to take my
chance in life by finding my own way
what is he thinking some said my mind
was made up for some reason I was
completely sold out to this idea that
the only life worth living was one where
you dance to your own music and so I
decided that I was going to do something
that would allow me solve lots of
problems it also couldn’t cost a lot of
money because I didn’t have any and of
course I couldn’t go back to my parents
because I told them excel Avista but
more importantly it had to lay the
foundation for becoming an enabler of
other people because I had discovered
early on that this was the purpose of my
life and so I decided I was going to do
technology I was going to build software
but I was just one problem I couldn’t
write a line of code and so I began to
search for a co-founder and eventually
chuka and I studied our software company
and somehow decided that we were going
to take on the challenge of Nigeria and
so I moved back and started from the
bottom bootstrapping the company one
customer to the next way before startup
investing became as cool as it is today
many years later my focus has now moved
from building the software company for
myself to helping others build
the companies of their dreams through
our early-stage venture fund co ventures
platform so allow me to reintroduce
myself my name is Colin ax and I’m a
builder my mansions in the forms of
people and their ideas today I am
focused on building platforms platforms
that build community platforms that
enable sharing and platforms that invest
in young people to create opportunities
adventures platform we are enabling the
youth of the continent to turn the
lemons we’ve been handed in to lemonade
and in the last two years we’ve invested
in 22 companies we’ve interacted with
over 2,000 founders we’ve trained about
3,000 young people we’ve built a pretty
amazing campus and we’ve seen our
portfolio do multiples in returns it
doesn’t end there we’ve also served a
couple thousand cups of coffee because
coffee of course is the fuel of the
future and we are just getting started
you see when I was 13 I had a pretty bad
accident and lost my memory I never
really regained full capacity of it so
you will have to forgive me if I forget
your first name after the first time we
meet I have a hack for that though so
over the years I have focused on
optimizing my memory for the pleasant
past experiences of my life and I tend
to rely on others to remind me of the
negatives when it becomes important I
also tend to rely on technology a lot to
invite me remind me of the critical data
points like birthdays meetings and
telephone numbers fortunately it sounds
terrible but this disability works out
pretty well actually
having very little recollection of the
negative experiences of the past
essentially makes me an incurable
optimist and for this I am eternally
grateful and so despite all that is
wrong with and in Africa all I see are
silver linings today more than ever
young Africans are building the future
and indeed they are the silver lining
that is why my team and I are committed
to building the future of the continent
by investing capital I’m providing the
much-needed supports to 100 startups
over the next four years and so while my
dad raised cattle many years ago today
we support a company like thrive agric
funded by two young men
Luca and I Oh Luca Pharma IO a software
engineer who are using technology to
connect smallholder farmers with
resources and helping to increase the I
yield fourfold and while I passed on the
opportunity to step into the easy shoes
of taking over the family printing
business today we now support Prince
evil funded by Alou yummy who’s building
the future of digital printing in Africa
but there’s more much more than I can
mention shall of a stock and in your
flora wave a building payments
infrastructure empowering billions of
dollars in transaction
Kendyl of chizetti recently raised 2.3
million dollars to connect more people
to the internet more affordably and the
lovely a foie who you just met was just
in this stage is the empowering woman
all over the continent
building a community of hundreds of
thousands of young women proving that
what a man can do a woman can do this
ladies are slaying
all over the continent young Africans
are exhibiting curiosity empathy and
urgency at an unprecedented level and in
doing so they are solving real problems
but there just isn’t enough African
capital to support them in 2016
African startups raised about 400
million dollars to build the future the
reality though is most of this capital
comes from foreign investors and we’re
not complaining as a matter of fact we
want more but that a few questions that
keep me up at night the first one is who
will own our future unicorns and more
specifically how do we get Africans at
home of means and those of you in this
room in the Diaspora
to get involved and invest in more of
these companies the future of Africa
will not be built by governments or
grants but by entrepreneurs who leverage
technology to build and scale businesses
fast but building his future requires
capital and in increasing numbers
African capital capital with context and
empathy capital on a mission your
capital it turns out that early-stage
technology investing in Africa can
actually be a great bet so if you had
put money in and Ella and Ella by the
way is a software talent accelerator if
you have put money in and Ella in the
early days you would have made 10x on
your investment iroko TV the African
Netflix if invested when they started
today you would have actually made three
thousand two cents bye guys three
thousand percent ladies and gentlemen in
the beginning I asked you to close your
eyes and thankfully some of
you did let me guess what kind of
unicorn you saw was it white blond head
well let’s try something different
picture a unicorn that’s black with a
afropunk braids maybe picture a unicorn
that kicks and hustles when he doesn’t
get the food it deserves in this in this
case cash right
and that gallops in celebration when it
does ladies and gentlemen my name is
Kalina
and I’m an African investor we are
invested in the future of Africa because
we believe that with the right support
gritty african founders would solve the
toughest problems on the continent will
create new markets will expand existing
markets and deliver value for themselves
and their investors
I believe that Africa will produce
unicorns and the time to get in on the
ground floor is now and so I invite you
to put your capital to good use now I’m
not oblivious to the fact that the
continent suffers a bad media rap
neither am i unaware that we have
insufficient stories of success I mean I
just told you to write I could have try
to tell you some more next time we also
suffer a host of individual biases but I
asked you to bill to be like me for a
moment and lose your memory of that past
but rather imagine a brighter African
future a future that you and I can build
together a future that you can invest in
join us as we build the future of Africa
thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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