ANNOUNCING TWO FINAL INVESTMENTS AND OUR MERGER WITH NOMADI COMMUNITY
We are pleased to disclose that in December 2022, we completed two new investments — Hisa Finance (East Africa) and Kacha Labs (West Africa), bringing our total investments to seven (7) across the continent in two years of operations.
Hisa Finance provides seamless access to foreign and local stocks as well as other investment opportunities. With an initial focus on the East African market, Hisa has grown to 20k+ users and transacted $2M+ in trading volume, Hisa leverages a social and educative approach to deliver its mission. The fintech runs an adjacent business media platform with millions of monthly hits — Kenyan Wall Street. We see this as a solid moat. Hisa also has solid growth partnerships in its pipeline, especially with regulators and larger fintechs, that we believe can help the business scale massively across the region.
Investment no.7, Kacha Labs is focusing on the future of work and how transformational products can be built for this new market. Kacha’s flagship product is Woka — a one-stop platform for digital workers globally to access automated benefits regardless of how they work or earn, either in fiat or stablecoins. With Woka, remote workers, founders, digital entrepreneurs & creators, freelancers, nomads & digital workers in general who earn on their own terms without employers per se providing them benefits, will be able to set up their pension, and health insurance as well as build robust income data for credit.
Kacha is exploring truly borderless and portable financial services, which is quite novel. Imagine a pension savings account that works for you anywhere in the world or you not having to plug into any local economy, but have all your investments, benefits, and spending happening from one global wallet. Kacha also went ahead to launch a separate community for its target market — Nomadi which has grown viral pre-launch and amassed over 500 members in under two weeks. Nomadi is a movement for global digital workers and nomads to connect, learn, share opportunities, and grow together.
Kacha sees Nomadi as not just a user acquisition strategy but a force to promote digital work and nomad life, whilst creating the home for digital talents everywhere. Hence, the ambitious move to offer Nomadi and Woka as standalone services. We are proud to join other world-class investors including — a leading blockchain network, a crypto exchange, a US-based fund, two other syndicates, and a host of other angels, on Kacha’s first round.
Thrive Africa is joining Nomadi!
We are also elated to announce that Thrive Africa Community is merging with Nomadi Community, as it is our firm conviction that Nomadi is everything we hoped to do with Thrive Africa.
We took the decision to pause activities at Thrive in December last year, after our last two investments, as disclosed above. This was in order for us to reevaluate our investing strategy, progress, and what’s next for Thrive after two years of meaningful operations. Our achievements include:
~ $100k invested across 7 startups in West and East Africa
~ 200+ community members in 11 countries.
~ All startups are up and running creating real value despite the drop in VC funding.
~ Hosted several virtual and physical meetups as well as helped members network better and access opportunities across multiple regions.
In spite of our progress, we observed a marked slowdown in the VC market from mid-last year through this year driven by global macroeconomic headwinds, which slowed down our investing operations at Thrive. Several Thrive Africa leaders also made significant life progress, making it difficult to continue to run the syndicate as normal. This also includes our Managing Partners — Ebovi Wali & Solomon Okafor, who also cofounded Kacha Labs in October last year, the parent company of Nomadi & Woka. They are joined by leading technologist and community member, Jephtah Uche as CTO. Uche was previously CTO @ Target Global-backed SMB-focused startup, Kippa.
All of these put together led us to search for a viable next step for the Thrive Africa Community as we all became increasingly unavailable to run day-to-day operations at Thrive. As a syndicate, we also considered several options, including recruiting a new team to manage Thrive, but the economics were just not right for this at the time. We are recommending other syndicates like Hoaq club which is still thriving that you can join if you want to continue on the path of active startup investments.
On our side, we are super excited for our new direction. We’ve always desired to be more than just a basic investing group. At Nomadi, we go on group trips, hang out at mixers in different cities, connect virtually, share opportunities, and volunteer to teach or join masterclass/fireside chats, as we aim to lead relevant conversations. We also carry out community projects like school visits or building community startups. Opportunistic group investing similar to Thrive is on the roadmap.
You can catch up with all Nomadi has been up to so far pre-launch here on twitter. Nomadi is billed to be launched formally this April.
What does a Thrive — Nomadi merger mean for all of us?
- All existing investments are SAFE and RUNNING. We will continue to manage them under our entity — Thrive Africa Syndicate LLC.
- Kacha Labs, the parent company of Nomadi, assumes relevant assets of Thrive Africa Syndicate LLC excluding investments that belong to members and investors as signed and acceded under the necessary investing agreements.
- Kacha Labs (Nomadi) will now manage Thrive Africa’s membership database and forums including the discord channel, mailing list, and social media channels, with combined followings of 500+ persons all over the world.
- It is welcome for Thrive members to opt out of the new arrangement. However, we encourage you to join our bold new mission to build a home for digital talents with Nomadi, as we see so much potential in what this can become.
Join Nomadi’s waitlist here to be the first to know when Nomadi launches. Do not hesitate to reach out to us on ebovi@thriveafricafund.com or Twitter DMs should you have any questions, opportunities, or clarifications.
Cheers to our future! Cheers to Nomadi!
Best,
Thrive Africa Community (Now Nomadi)
