Iyin Aboyeji, founder of VC firm Future Africa, and general partner Mia von Koschitzky-Kimani, are set to launch Accelerate Africa, an accelerator supported by a $750,000 USAID grant. With both founders having experienced significant startup successes, they aim to foster the next wave of global businesses from Africa.
Aboyeji has expressed a desire for Accelerate Africa to become the Y Combinator (YC) of Africa. The inaugural Accelerate Africa cohort will run for eight weeks and welcome ten pre-seed and seed-stage startups from any sector across Africa’s 54 countries.
The program will focus on enhancing founders’ storytelling, team building, business development, and product development skills.
This initiative comes as other accelerators are gradually closing their doors across Africa. Y Combinator, a globally recognized accelerator, had only three African startups in its summer 2023 cohort, indicating a withdrawal from the African landscape.
Aboyeji said they are seeking founders with groundbreaking ideas and vast market opportunities – notably those who would have excelled in YC but are unable to join due to the company’s reduced focus on Africa.
Aboyeji isn’t surprised by the American accelerator’s renewed focus on its home territory. He explains, “When capital is scarce and expensive, you will concentrate on the demographics you’re familiar with. This is particularly true if you’ve experienced controversies.”
In the previous year, YC-supported companies like 54Gene and Dash faced significant controversies and had to shut down after raising substantial amounts of money.
Accelerate Africa is poised to step in as Y Combinator retreats, offering funding and a seal of credibility to African startups. Iyin Aboyeji is optimistic about Accelerate Africa’s potential for success, emphasizing that they bring an African perspective that YC lacked.
He also highlights the access they have to regulators and leaders in traditional financial institutions such as banks, allowing them to provide guidance based on the realities of Africa’s market and business landscape.
Accelerate Africa plans to buck the recent trend of remote accelerators and will work in-person with the startups it selects. These startups will be split into two groups of five and for the first six weeks, the program will operate concurrently in Nairobi and Lagos, led by Koschitzky-Kimani and Aboyeji respectively.
In the last two weeks, the Nairobi group will join the teams in Lagos. The first cohort is set to run from April to May.
The accelerator’s success will be measured by the amount of follow-on funding the startups secure during and after the program. However, unlike YC, participation in the accelerator does not guarantee funding from the program itself. This approach is rooted in Aboyeji’s previous experience during the accelerator’s pilot phase, where complications arose from offering all 25 participating startups investment.
At the end of the program, the participating startups will have the opportunity to pitch to investors, including angel investors, Series A and Series B investors, as well as Future Africa, whose typical investment ranges from $250,000 to $500,000. Yet, Aboyeji clarified that participation in the accelerator does not assure inclusion in Future Africa’s portfolio.
Although the accelerator and the VC firm are separate entities, and some Future Africa staff will facilitate the program, there may be concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Aboyeji addressed this by stating, “We’re not signing NDAs, but we have no interest in building startups ourselves.”
He assured startups that Future Africa adheres to a policy of information segregation, preventing any sharing of information with potential competitors.
