I’m Yele Bademosi, Founder & Managing Partner of Microtraction, ASK ME ANYTHING!

[yelebademosi]

@Kiz

When you say you fund startups with technical founder, you mean you fund only startups that has technical founders OR you mean you provide startups with a technical cofounder in exchange for equity? Sorry my English has failed me here.

We are looking to fund teams with 2-4 founders with at least one technical founder who is responsible for building the tech i.e. not outsourced

However a non-technical founding team that has hired a developer full time also counts.

[dotun.o]

Hey Yele…
what basic assumptions are you making about the African market that significantly influence your investment theses. And what are the variables (micro / macro) that will likely change those assumptions?

[yelebademosi]

@techscorpion

The Interswitch IPO was suspended ostensibly due to FX shortages. It is arguable that it was essentially a vote of no confidence in our macroeconomic growth rate, which raises a few questions including:

1. Do you see a similar lack of investor appetite in late stage African xyz-tech tech deals?
2. Do you have any evidence that the elusive African unicorn will ever reveal itself? When and in which sector is it most likely?

Cheers.

I go into detail in my blog post when we launched Microtraction.

But my belief is that more venture backable startups at seed stage will lead to more growth venture funds being formed and that’s our principle role at Microtraction.

Not a fan of the term “unicorns” and it’s obsession but I 100% believe we’ll get multiple unicorns with time.

The focus right now is to seed sustainable high-growth potential startups in very large fast growing markets

[yelebademosi]

@nubikay

Hi @yelebademosi – Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Was just curious about these:

1 – "why"did you decide to go after technical founders

2 – has the local ecosystem gotten to a point where there are enough technical founders to make a dent

3 – will you (Microtraction) be doing anything to increase this capacity

Bonus – Will Microtraction invest in a team where the technical co-founder is foreign and the business co-founder Nigerian/African?

Hi Nubi,

1. There are lots of people with “ideas” than there are “technical founders”, we decided to go with this initial focus because it’s a fundamental belief of ours that’s it’s really hard & costly to build a tech company without a tech founder – also my personal experience as a non-technical single founder vs when I was technical with a technical CTO/founder was mind blowingly different, we were able to ship an app from idea to app store in under a week compared me spending 16 months to recruit/outsource development

2. We have Andela & Andela DLC, Switch, ForLoop, DevCenter, Ocean Digits, “Forward thinking” Universities and many more creating this pool of talent – we don’t think we are there yet but there’s definitely positive momentum. Special TUALE to the Developer Evangelists across the continent

3. We are definitely thinking about it, our guiding philosophy is to “Stand on the shoulders of giants but build from first principles” – We want to teach people how to code from their mobile phones at their own convenience, for free whilst having access to mentors/community". Would be great if a startup set out to solve this problem as we’ll definitely be interested in funding a company like this.

Bonus Answer – we want to fund Africa focused or based founders so the answer is yes !

[yelebademosi]

@dotun.o

Hey Yele…
what basic assumptions are you making about the African market that significantly influence your investment theses. And what are the variables (micro / macro) that will likely change those assumptions?

I don’t have a lot of assumptions but we have key beliefs

• Founders can validate that their startup is venture backable on $15-50k
• Founding teams with technical founders will be more capital efficient than non-technical teams
• $100m annual revenue companies will be built by African founders within 10 years

The first bullet point is what MUST be validated in the short term and our success metric is our portfolio companies raising $500k within 18 months of our investments. It’s ambitious but if we aim for the sun and land on the moon it’s not a bad effort.

[akindolu]

Yele, hi.

A few questions:

1. What’s one thing you wish more people work on but not seeing from your application pool?

2. If you were to build a company today, not Microtraction of course, what problem will you be solving? Put differently, top idea on your mind.
   (I guess that’s variant of question 1)

3. How tall are you?
   (It’s AMA)

[yelebademosi]

@akindolu

Yele, hi.

A few questions:

1. What’s one thing you wish more people work on but not seeing from your application pool?

2. If you were to build a company today, not Microtraction of course, what problem will you be solving? Put differently, top idea on your mind.
   (I guess that’s variant of question 1)

3. How tall are you?
   (It’s AMA)

1. What’s one thing you wish more people work on but not seeing from your application pool?

Would like to see more Agricultural companies, Agriculture is a significant % of our GDP and it’s a really big market with problems that are not being solved. SaaS & BPO companies are another favourite of mine, I believe we can build global SaaS & BPO companies from Africa that will have significant revenue potential. In a future post I will be sharing insights into opportunities that founders should look into exploring.

2. If you were to build a company today, not Microtraction of course, what problem will you be solving? Put differently, top idea on your mind.

I’ll would work on a crypto-hedge fund (or what I call a spec fund) – super risky & speculative stuff but it’s on the edge of technology so it’s interesting & combines my original interest in investments with the benefits of having a higher IRR potential than venture investment. I’m also interested in battery packs like Tesla’s powerwall as an alternative to electric grid, having seen the rapid increase in innovation within the space in the last 5 years. Non-tech I would focus on Agriculture or Manufacturing sectors.

3. How tall are you?

Haha! You are right I’m 6 ft 6

Bonus: I play football rather than basketball and captained my university’s football team

[yelebademosi]

Okay that’s it for me.

Thanks for coming and asking really great questions. If you are starting a company, I’ll love to hear from you.

Apply here to get funded by Microtraction.

If you have more questions, I’ll be available via email yele@microtraction.com and on twitter @yelebademosi

Have a blessed day.

YB

[Franics_sani]

Great stuff Yele.

The session gave useful insights into your approach and ideology. Lot of takeaways, key for me though is looking forward to the first $100 million revenue startup.

Big ups to the Cabal team for the amazing AMA sessions.

#Let’sMakeSomethingEpic.

[techscorpion]

@yelebademosi

I go into detail in my blog post when we launched Microtraction.

I read your blog post before I asked the question. I understand the popular “increase the size of the funnel” investment theory and I think it works well when there’s a growing middle class that can support growth in late stage companies. The “growing middle class” exception applies to rent-seeking business models such as Gtbank’s 737, etc, but alas those models are rare.

@yelebademosi

The focus right now is to seed sustainable high-growth potential startups in very large fast growing markets

I believe your goal is to provide deal flow to venture and growth stage investors. It makes a lot of sense and we need more companies such as yours, and I am very optimistic that you will succeed.

Nonetheless, the Interswitch IPO failure is still instructive because unless the root causes are understood and fixed, big signature exits that lift all boats by attracting more capital flows will always be mirage. Perhaps we need to re-examine the notion that African tech startups need to look inward and focus mainly on local markets.

I’m curious to know your views.

[alinnorugonna]

Hello Yele, In what categories do you seek to fund? Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity…e.t.c Secondly must a company generate revenue before you invest? thirdly what are the qualities you seek in a founder you hope to invest in? And finally must a founder have a co-founder before you invest?

[spokentwice]

Great stuff @yelebademosi. It’s a good move you are giving agric a lot of focus in your fund.

[bioye]

Hi Yele.

Appears I’m too late. Nonetheless I have two questions:

• What’s your order of priority for the following - idea, people, company?

• Would you invest in founders who are executing project part-time?

Thanks.

[yelebademosi]

Might sound bullish but have no doubts there will be liquidity events in the future, however I don’t place too much focus on the exits at the moment because that’s like putting the cart before the horse.

I believe if we build great enduring businesses that generate significant revenue, exits will come.

I do have theories on how we can get more liquidity events as an ecosystem, you rightly pointed out that there are opportunities/problems that local startups can solve on the global stage where we have comparative advantages an example is what I call “Globalization of SaaS” i.e. doing what the Chinese & Japanese did to American Manufacturing & Automobile industry but for SaaS products. Another industry where we have comparative advantages is in BPO industry which is really huge in SE Asia

[yelebademosi]

@alinnorugonna

Hello Yele, In what categories do you seek to fund? Virtual Reality, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity…e.t.c Secondly must a company generate revenue before you invest? thirdly what are the qualities you seek in a founder you hope to invest in? And finally must a founder have a co-founder before you invest?

1. We are sector agnostic
2. You stand a better chance of being funded if you are already generating revenue even if it’s < $500 p/m
3. We prefer teams to single founders

[yelebademosi]

@bioye

What’s your order of priority for the following - idea, people, company?
Would you invest in founders who are executing project part-time?

Hi Bioye,

Will be answering questions even though my responses may not be instant.

Our priorities are

1. Market
2. Team
3. Problem
4. Product
5. Distribution

Finally, we won’t penalize founders who are working on their startups part-time, although we do expect founders to be full-time post funding. However working on your startup full-time does show a higher level of commitment.

[techscorpion]

Thanks for coming back to address the late comers.

@yelebademosi

…there are opportunities/problems that local startups can solve on the global stage where we have comparative advantages an example is what I call “Globalization of SaaS”

I like the way you think. You should write a blog post about this if you have some free time. I think founders need to hear something like this coming from a professional investor. Cheers.

[jxtapos]

As a tech founder, I think it’s imperative to join forces with other non techies to push Building Materials forward to run the idea.
Do you invest in lone tech heads who also run the organization.