Just a couple of days ago, at the 2013 Mobile Web West Africa precisely, Jason Njoku and Bastian Gotter announced that they had set up SPARK, a $1 million venture that will invest in Nigeria’s most talented tech entrepreneurs Nigerian startups.
What fascinated me was the fact that they had already invested in 13 companies and not many people knew about this until now.
However, seeing the companies reminded me about the Samwer Brothers’ Rocket Internet who currently have 50+ companies even though they have created over 100 market leading companies in 40+ countries, dozens of which have been exited successfully.
Jason Njoku maintains that he just “wants a company that builds f–king awesome companies”. In his recent blogpost he said:
“We could’ve kept the money in our pockets, bought some land in Lekki or simply spent the money on expensive shiny things. But we decided to put it all on black. I don’t own a house or land for that matter, so I literally bet it on tomorrow’s internet titans. We are making the most systematic and wide ranging bet on the early stage Nigerian internet space. I don’t care to be an investor. I don’t want anything to do with ‘incubation’.
I just want to have a company which builds f–king awesome companies. That is SPARK’s simple mission. There is no social angle. This isn’t me ‘giving back to the ecosystem’. No hippy sh-t here. SPARK is simply about improving the odds for a selection of ambitious, starving and mostly young Nigerians to create the next class of multi-million dollar internet companies.” – Jason Njoku
This is not too different from Rocket Internet style. Rocket Internet builds companies too. They definitely do not do this for charity. They have been making money and they are still making it. They have access to funds and “bring together all key elements required to create great companies: team, concept, technology, and capital”. According to Alexander Kudlich, “Our ventures succeed because we provide all they need: great people, functional best practices, funding and on-going hands-on support.”
Is Spark modelled after Rocket Internet? Hmmm… Bastian Gotter seems to think not. In his recent interview with
Bankole Oluwafemi (Lord Banks) in a recent
interview/blog post on TechCabal, “It’s not really Rocket-ish”. “To even setup a startup in Nigeria, you need an endless amount of money for electricity, cars, internet, HR, legal, and all kinds of other expensive shit. We take out all that company-like stuff and let them focus on execution”.
What do I think? Hmm…. Rocket Internet brings everything to create companies while Spark integrates core business process and expenses across all child companies while the companies focus on execution.
The probability of success is higher with Rocket Internet and they are in full control. Spark would need to focus a lot on entrepreneurial egos that seem to come out of the woodworks when you tell “CEOs” that that have spent too much money on a concept and there are very visible signs that the concept would not work.
Kudos to Jason and Bastian. You have started a great initiative. Copy from the “Copycats” (no offence meant – Rocket) and adapt quickly.
Have fun.
