22XFund: A new funding model for early stage startups and investors
I recently got a chance to speak at the IGF conference at the United Nations Office in Geneva. It was awesome talking about how we can leverage Mobile Technology and crowdsourcing to create a new kind of infrastructure for development In Africa. If you have got some time you can watch it here (IGF 2017 — day 2 — WK XXVI — SPECIAL SESSION ON “DATA FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ROAD MAPS”)
We started this journey over a year ago from our apartment in the city of Abuja, Nigeria. We were convinced we were solving a huge problem so we left our six figure salary jobs and we went all in and put all our savings into the Mobile Forms Project. Today we are helping local and international businesses map out ground realities in Africa. We provide extra income to over 8000 students and entrepreneurs across Nigeria and the data they provide is extremely valuable to businesses who in turn use this data to improve service delivery in communities. A big thanks to the 500 Startups family and fellow founders who decided to take a chance on us and travel this journey with us.
The 22Xfund provides us a huge opportunity to scale this success across Africa as described in my presentation at the United Nations. It also opens us up to investors from all over the world who share our visions and dream of a new Africa.
Investing in early stage companies is tricky. Because the numbers are not so high, investors tend to rely on several other factors to make a decision. 22Xfund gives them a wider net to invest in a pool of validated startups in one shot. They reduce their risk, diversify their portfolio and get liquidity faster than traditional means. It is a win for both investors and founders. We are proud to be setting the pace in early stage funding not just for us but for other startups coming after us.
