Announcing Sufficient Capital

When we started DFS Lab, our goal was to support founders who were building companies that could improve the lives of their families and broader communities. When we started building towards that goal in 2017, we focused on bridging a funding gap for startups expanding financial services across the continent. In the time that followed, we invested in companies like NALA, Pezesha, Hover, Pula, and Appruve.

However, we quickly realized a truism when it comes to financial access — that financial services are only as good as the digital commerce landscapes in which they operate. We began forming a data-driven hypothesis around what that landscape might look like, and where investors might have a “Frontier Blindspot.” This started to reflect in our investment choices as well as we backed ‘fintech-adjacent’ startups like TaniHub and NUMI.

Fast-forward to today and we have further refined our hypothesis:

• Digital ubiquity is overhyped whereas physical ubiquity is underhyped — online and offline commerce must interconnect to reach 95% of users.
• Some B2C models are much more difficult than B2B models — unit economics are capped by consumer consumption vs. acquisition costs.
• There is promise around next-gen models that supply essential daily goods — especially food — which makes up the majority of current consumption.
• Enabling income generation and/or savings for consumers and SMEs can produce startup business models with sustainable revenues.
• Fintech continues its shift from customer-facing to embedded and headless— where digital rails link efficient capital with financial services that are seamlessly integrated into digital commerce flows.

While calling out what we see as some hard edges of today’s market may be uncomfortable, we also find it clarifying and exciting. Tech-enabled advances in physical infrastructure will continue to blend with the emerging digital rails and unlock broader market access, better prices, more efficient supply chains, increased incomes, access to finance, and more choice for both consumers and producers in Africa. There is a flywheel being built and we envision a generational shift in how commerce is conducted on the continent with benefits flowing to a larger group of people than ever before.

We’ve already invested in some of the most promising founders tackling these opportunities such as OnePipe, Tanda, Ando, Suplias, Koa, GoBEBA, and PesaKit.

Today, we’d like to invite you to join us in backing these exceptional founders and join Sufficient Capital, a DFS Lab-organized community of angels and venture professionals around the world exploring and investing in the future of digital commerce in Africa.

Not only are we forming a group of investors looking to co-invest with each other, we are building a community of learners where we can discuss, debate, and further support the founders and companies we believe in. Those who apply and are offered membership gain insider access to:

• DFS Lab’s deal flow and co-investment opportunities
• Deal memos, due diligence packages, and founder Q&As
• Community Discord server and WhatsApp group
• Monthly events that include fireside chats and social mixers*

Annual memberships are $990 per year.

You can learn more and apply for membership at sufficient.capital. We’re excited to have you join us on this journey.

*Monthly events will start off as virtual-only but will start to become more in-person at various global tech-hubs once travel restrictions due to COVID-19 ease.