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The next African story will be written by Africans, and there are people crafting the narrative now. Join Dotun as he hosts a series of conversation with people whose ideas and work is shaping the African future.
Hello, my name is Dotun Olowoporoku, and this is the Season 5 of the Building the Future Podcast.
[Intro music]
I started this podcast in 2016 to explore the African tech startup ecosystem through the voices of its key players - the founders, operators, investors, and policy makers who were shaping the future of the continent through innovation with limited resources.
Four seasons and nearly eight years later, it’s an understatement to say that a lot has changed. In 2016, African tech startups raised a ‘record breaking’ $366M in venture funding according to the Partech Africa Report; meanwhile, in 2023, the ecosystem brought in nearly 10x that amount, even with a 46% decline from 2022 highs. Some of the early-stage founders I interviewed have built teams of thousands of people, found product-market fit, and scaled across multiple countries.
In the process, they’ve raised hundreds of millions of dollars, created billions of dollars in enterprise value, sold their businesses to multinational strategic buyers, made a lot of money for their early investors and team members and most importantly, improved countless African lives through their products. These founders have brought technology into everyday life in Africa, influencing the economy, society, and even laws across the continent.
Since launching the podcast in 2016, my professional journey in Africa has taken several interesting turns. After exiting my startup in 2015, I became an angel investor and ecosystem builder through Starta, then joined Novastar Ventures as an investment principal, and later became Chief Commercial Officer at Moniepoint. Currently, I'm managing a seed VC fund at Ventures Platform alongside my friend and partner, Kola Aina, who started the firm almost a decade ago. Ventures Platform is a financial expression of the conversations held on this podcast. Our core thesis is funding and supporting founders who are building Africa’s future through market-creating innovations that solve for non-consumption on the continent.
In this season of the podcast, I’ll be having deep conversations with some of the founders and key players leading the charge beyond the Series A funding stage. Some of whom I've interviewed in previous seasons of the podcast. We will highlight key issues, share inspiring stories, and draw out valuable lessons for scaling pan-African tech businesses. You can expect in-depth, nuanced, sometimes technical, conversations — just like the ones I have with them behind closed doors — but don’t worry, they are broken down for listeners of all backgrounds.
This season is produced by my good friend, Osarumen Osamuyi of The Subtext. We have collaborated previously, sharing a unified vision about the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in shaping the future of Africa. Together, we curated the guests and discussion points for this season, and it was gratifying to see it all come together.
This intro episode is a brief conversation between Osarumen and myself. We reflect on some of the interviews we've had this season, discussing the main insights and takeaways, and how we believe the episodes in this season will advance our ecosystem's ongoing conversations.
Putting this together has been a significant learning experience, and I'm thrilled to share it with the world. I hope you find it as rewarding as I did. Please enjoy my brief discussion with Osarumen about Season 5 of the "Building the Future" podcast.
Season Intro - Building the Future S5
Dotun O: [00:00:00] Hey Osarumen, thanks for doing this . Uh, it's been a long time coming for me to restart the podcast. It's over two years now and I've had a lot of people, either they reach out to me on Twitter or in person asking about Building the Future podcast, and I've never done the introduction to a season like this.
So I think it's good to to, to reintroduce the podcast of a lot of people and to talk about this particular season. And it's exciting to have you as the producer of this podcast. Is, is very rare to have a producer who has been nominated is the Oscars or something that you contributed to and to have that kind of producer on the podcast is always a great thing.
This conversation will delve into some of the things that we've done in this season. We've interviewed quite a number of great people and have fantastic conversations with founders who are building great business across Africa, but it'd be good to just have this initial conversation between you and I to just reintroduce the podcast to a new audience and to existing audience as well about what we are doing this season.
So Osarumen, [00:01:00] welcome to Building the Future Podcast.
Osarumen O: Thank you so much, Doc. It's a bit of an honor working on this because the ecosystem has evolved a lot. Over the past, let's call it like 10 years, and there's very few. I don't think there's any other podcast that sort of has been around from the very beginning.
You know, speaking to the people who sort of started laying the groundwork and doing a check-in with that perspective in mind, um, you know, there'll be many more. Media properties started. The ecosystem has gotten lots more attention, but it's good to be able to bring a perspective that also has that context from many, many years ago.
Like there's four seasons worth of content, which everybody should go back and listen to as context for this one. But yeah, I'm excited to check in on the ecosystem in 2024. Why did you start the podcast in the first place? As I said back then, not many people were starting podcasts, but you know, you have four seasons worth.
Why did you start in the first place?
Dotun O: I often get asked this question and it ties back to my own. What I'll call my origin story and why I'm, why I'm doing whatever I'm doing, whether as an investor or ecosystem builder. So I used [00:02:00] to start my story by saying I was an academic and, and I'm still academic by heart.
And the way I do things . I used to be a postdoc research fellow, uh, and then I became an accidental entrepreneur and now a reluctant vc. But when I started coming to Nigeria in 2015, looking into investing in startups , I, I, I approached it with a kind of curiosity to understand what had happened before, who are the players, and basically in a way to pay homage to, to people who are already building things, but also to understand fundamentally why, how, and what is happening.
And I started having conversation, having coffee shop conversation with founders, and, uh, my curiosity and my research mind, we always be asking them, so how did you start? What did you do? What led to this? What is your story? What? Can you go back, please? Let's talk about. What led you to this to, to wanting to start a startup and some of this conversation were like, I was thinking, [00:03:00] I think a lot of people should be listening to this, what this guys is saying, I want more people.
I think I remember the particular place where I got that idea. I was having a chat with Chika Nwobi and. Funnily has not been on the podcast we had. We've always been missing each other. He was the one I was talking to late 2015. I was having a chat with him somewhere in Lagos, and I was asking him, how did he start, what did, what led you to this?
And he had incredible story of how he started, what he did, even leading a tech company to the public market, exiting that, starting again, joining Jobberman and investing in Joman leading job. Incredible and fantastic story. And I felt. This should be recorded. And that was why the seed of having a podcast started forming in my mind.
And in 2016, uh, I think the one of the first person I called when I was thinking about a podcast was Iyin Aboyeji and I said, Hey, E wanna start a podcast. And I wanted to explore the stories of people, uh, who [00:04:00] are building the future of Africa and I'm calling it Building the Future. And he said, yeah, that's a great name.
He was the first guest on the podcast. Uh, I remember I came to my hotel room late in the evening on one Sunday night actually to record. We recorded off till about 1:00 AM and that was during the transition. He was actually leaving Andela then. It's not public yet, and it was exploring Flutterwave, and he was talking cryptically to me about , this new idea.
And that was how I started it, was exploring the stories of. Entrepreneurs, innovators, ecosystem builders who are shaping the future of Africa, and that's why I called it Building the Future.
Osarumen O: That was a great story. The next thing I'm curious about is what are your three favorite episodes and why?
Dotun O: That's a difficult question to ask.
I love all the episode, all my guests are fantastic guests, but if I have to pick the ones that are, that stood out for me a lot, the most, um, not just about the conversation, but how I [00:05:00] went about them. But the first one, I'll. pick is, uh, the interview with Bob Collymore er, uh, the late Bob Collymore er, who as at then, the CEO of Safaricom.
It was the fastest episode I've done in terms of reaching out to the person and interviewing. Normally I reach out to people or I get in touch, somebody introduced me to them, and it take weeks for us to schedule an episode, and sometimes we might even have like a five minute chat or 10 minutes chat and just.
Tell about the episode before we then schedule it, especially if you're very, very busy.
Bob, I met at a conference in London. Uh, he was speaking at London Business School conference and I was speaking as well. Uh, and we met and we got. Talking and I was sitting beside him at dinner and before that I was chatting with him and I said, Hey Bob, would you like to come to my podcast?
I want to, I would like to interview you for, uh, this is the podcast, this is the seasonal. And I told him about it and he said, okay, yeah, we can do it. And I said, can we do it today? And he said, okay, yeah, we [00:06:00] can do it. Uh. Today. Uh, and I said, okay, fine. So I started tagging him everywhere he is going to, of course I had a lot of people talking to him, milling around him, but I'll be standing lurking around the corner like his PA just, just waiting.
You cannot leave me. And I had my, all my kit with me there. I used to travel with my kit and he said, you, you're not gonna leave me. And then at dinner, we are having dinner there and he was sitting somewhere and I was sitting there, I was looking at him. Hey. You can't run . I'm gonna interview you today.
And then when he got tired of the dinner, it's okay. Can we go? And then we went to, uh, a lobby, the lobby of hotel. Actually it was quite noisy. People are listening to the episode. We realized there's some noise around. We are sitting in a lobby of the hotel in between two stairs . And both us were there I gave the microphone.
And I interviewed him. So I contacted him in the afternoon and around eight o'clock, he was tired that evening, actually, he just flew into London for that summit. And he had not, maybe slept at all, but he did, he did the episode. He, he was such a great guy. Uh, it's [00:07:00] sad that we lost him, uh, uh, a few years ago, but such a great guy was giving to the ecosystem.
And so that was a standout episode for me. The other one, uh, was the one with Shola, Shola Akinlade Paystack. I remember the episode, it came to my place and it was around the time that they were having some, they've launched for a while and Flutterwave launched as well, and there was a bit of bad blood between them , and fueled by a lot of conversation on.
Not Twitter, then
Osarumen O: Radar
Dotun O: on, I forgot. Radar. Yes. Radar. TechCabal radar fueled by that. So that was going on and there was a lot of stuff going on that, Shola wanted to speak to, but it didn't. I, I don't think I wanted to go to any, tech blog to to, to talk about it. So my, my on my podcast and of course the purpose of my podcast is not for controversy or news gathering until now.
I tell people the podcast shouldn't be newsworthy. It's more about learning education or exploring and understanding rather than spilling out [00:08:00] some things or talking about, gist, that's not opposed to my podcast. That's why I record a lot of. Months before I release, I mean some weeks before I release it because it's not, the purpose is not for it to be timely and newsworthy.
It's supposed to be timeless in terms of the education you get there. But Shola had a lot in his chest when we were talking about the origin of Paystack. He was really eating hard on some things and that nearly got me in trouble with, with Flutterwave. So that was a very memorable episode because when it was launched.
A lot of bloggers just picked so many things out of it, writing too many, so many things, insinuating certain things that maybe Shola didn't mean, and Flutterwave guys weren't happy about it. And then funnily, I was doing some work with Flutterwave at that point, and I've not met GB and GB wasn't happy about the box.
I had to tell him, Hey, gb, I recorded this many, many weeks ago. And I didn't know it's gonna cause this kind of controversy. So that was a memorable one. The third one I will highlight, uh, and not because I'm a bit [00:09:00] biased about it, was the one with Kola Aina, uh, I think we, we met you once before then and it was an Abuja and we met and we realized that we have some common interest and common vision.
But when we recorded a podcast, I think that was the first podcast, the caller was able to talk about a full length about his story. Because what people are thinking, where's this guy from a butcher who just started, who built this? Um, this. Innovation hub that is nice and artsy and stuff. And everything was happening in Lagos and you are in Abuja.
So, mm-hmm. There, there's some interest around him. And that podcast was like he told Historian in an unhindered way in on maybe slightly long edit, edited way. And it spoke about Historian, and that episode was quite good in the sense that it. Bonded us together more because we realized that we have so many things in common in terms of value, our story our vision, and then we got closer after, after that episode.
So that was one that stood in the sense that it shaped. My own trajectory a little bit as well, because I was thinking about raising a fund and it was after the [00:10:00] episode that Kola and I started talking about, can we do it together? Um, and, and so that was memorable for me. Of course, I will add one more, which in this one's not about the story around the episode, but about the episode itself.
It was the one with Razak from Cowrywise, fantastic episode. Raza story is incredible. I mean, growing up in Kano and not. having any dream of going to university because he wanted to be a mechanic. And then he moved to the south to to Ogbomosho and was living the university town and realized, oh, there's something called university, and decided to give it a go.
And I went to University of Ife and. First class CFA at built a fantastic business on the back of that. That is an episode that still rings in my head and I really enjoyed a lot.
Osarumen O: One of my favorite things about the podcast Medium is that it kind of helps you get to know the guests a bit more, much deeper than, just reading a text interview and with the recent shift to video.
You know that that's even more 'cause you can actually see or learn things about a person [00:11:00]can learn many more things about a person than, um, than you would if you were just reading text. But this is a good segue, I think, to talking about why bring this back at all. You know, , it's been two and a half years or two years since, you last published a season.
So I'd like to know what have you been up to in the past two years and why are you coming back?
Dotun O: Yeah. So in the last years, a lot had happened, but let's go back to why I initially paused the podcast. Um, I paused when I joined Nova Star as a principal. It was a new job that I'm have to have a steep learning curve.
I wanted to really throw myself into learning how to be an institutional. VC and, and I and I also moved to a new city I was in, in Nairobi for a while, and I wanted to integrate myself into the culture of learning how to be a vc. Prior to then, I've been an entrepreneur, angel investor, ecosystem builder, running Starta, and doing podcast.
Shifting to becoming a [00:12:00] VC was a new thing for me, and I wanted to. Put myself, dedicate myself to it totally. And learn as much as I can without trying to do, two things at a time. And so I felt a podcast can hold for a while whilst I just learning. My time I noticed I was like, MBA was like a full-time, MBA in my mind except I'm being paid to do it.
So I, I threw myself into learning about. The rudiment to rudimentary and the basic things about being a vc, the legals and, uh, deal sourcing going through the process of deal making and, and transaction stuff. And I felt that I couldn't do the podcast, efficiently as I normally do, because every season I'm dedicated to make sure that the season is done properly.
One of the things I, cherish about podcast, I think actually wrote about it, the most important about podcast is consistency. And I wanted it to be consistent every week, if I tell my audience or my listener that I'm gonna give you an episode every week for the next 12 week. I, I have to do that. And, and I don't think I could have [00:13:00] done that whilst I'm still learning to be a VC in a new city.
And that's why I pause for a while. I came back a little bit during Covid when everybody's doing podcast about, I didn't do much, so it paused since them. But the last two years I've. I, I'm still learning to be a vc. It takes 10 years for you to know whether you're a good VC or not after you've returned the fund.
But I've done several things. I've been the CCO of Moniepoint and helping to raise money and setting up the board, but I've also joined my partner, Kola Aina in closing the fund at Pan-African VC Fund and setting up a team, uh, uh, doing lots of transactions in the last few months. But I also re realized that the podcast now compliments.
I've got to a place now in my journey, that podcast can go hand in hand and it can complement what I'm doing. But beyond that, I'm still curious. I still want to do this for a long time. I'm curious about how the ecosystem has shaped out what has happened since I. 2016, we've now had [00:14:00]unicorns, we have exits, we have Pan-African tech companies.
Uh, when I started the handful of company that raised more than a million dollars, now a million dollars is just a starting point for a lot of companies. There were handful of company that have $10 million revenue actually. Million dollar revenue annually in the tech ecosystem in 2016. Very Now we have companies that are doing $200 million revenue and and above, and, and, and so the ecosystem has moved on.
We have, our companies are now mainstream. You can go to the street of Lagos. mention, uh, Moniepoint, mention Flutterwave, Paystack, and every man on the street, most people on the street know these companies. They're now mainstream. They're shaping lives. And I think that's, it's worthy for us to now talk about that, talk about what has happened and how are these companies shaping the future of Africa?
What are the challenges they're facing? What are the difficulties? What are the triumphs actually they're having as well in leading and building those kind of companies, touching millions of lives? And [00:15:00] that's what is driving me. So two things. One, I think. The conversation compliment what I'm doing and it's very important to what I'm doing now, which is finding and funding and supporting the best startups across Africa, but also for the ecosystem to see how far we've come, and the challenges that we are facing now.
From the perspective of those founders who are building those great businesses. And that's why I want to do this season
Osarumen O: This resonates pretty strongly with me 'cause I remember. in 2015/2016 Hotels.ng raised a $1.2 million series A from Echo VC and a couple other firms. And I remember it was a big celebration, at TechCabal back then. , I think we did a Radar ask me anything about, um, session with Mark, you know, and it was a big celebration.
And right now you see, if you raise anything less than a million dollars, I'm not sure TechCrunch even writes about you or anybody you know, really cares that much. And so it is just to show you how much. Growth has come in the ecosystem. I'm curious from your perspective, what should you know you.[00:16:00]
I'll call them two cycles of excitement. Say maybe 20 12, 20 14 when everybody was excited about e-commerce on the continent and you had Rocket Internet, Kinnevik and, and other firms investing pretty heavily on the continent, and then there was a bit of a slump. Um, and in the past couple years everybody was excited about FinTech.
And it seems we we're going through a similar time. From your perspective, as a venture builder and as an investor, what should the ecosystem be thinking about right now as we're going through this phase?
Dotun O: One of the arrogance of VC is to think that we know what entrepreneur should be thinking about or what the ecosystem should become or where all the future lies or what, what the future is.
We should have some hypothesis as investors with intentionality about how we invest and how we think about things. But in reality, we don't know. We don't know what company will survive. We can see trends and make some assumptions, but to answer your question in a way that can tread around that, uh, assumption, I, I still fundamentally, and [00:17:00] again, a lot of people might disagree with me.
I still believe there's a lot to be done with regards to financial services. I think FinTech. Forget about the hype. People think, oh, many, everybody's doing FinTech. FinTech is fundamental to exchange of value . A lot of Africans are still not financially included, and even those that are financially included, the inclusion is not, is not complete without access to finance, access to credit.
Um. Data. Do we even know the people in terms of financially? Do we know them? And I also include pension. I will include insurance into all of this. And I think there's a lot that needs to be built when those things are built properly and they're fundamentally built. I. Other things can be built on top of them.
I mean, a classic example is the founding of Paystack and Flutterwave led to a lot of companies being built. Without Paystack and Flutterwave,. we're gonna struggle to have piggy vest. We're gonna struggle to have private creek. We're gonna struggle to [00:18:00] have so many Rise Vest. We're gonna struggle to have so many other companies that are building with a basic assumption that payment is solved.
Recurring payment. Is there API is there for you to know how much it's been paid? All this kind of stuff. We forget that those things, they're, they're not given eight years ago. And I still think there are fundamental things that still need to be built with regards to, uh, layers of financial services and exchange of value that entrepreneurs still need to think deeper rather than just copying somebody else or assuming that they can just build a product and someone will just pay for it because it, it looks sexy and cool.
People can think deep and say, what are the fundamental market creating products and innovation that I need to spend my time to think through and build that will unlock other market, unlock other product, unlock other value, and I think that's the way we can move things forward. We have to agree that. We have infrastructure deficit in [00:19:00] Africa and that infrastructure deficit cut across many things, both physical infrastructure, digital infrastructure, and financial infrastructure.
And even with social infrastructure as well, and and entrepreneurs that are building those infrastructures can move us forward and enable other companies to build on top of them, and that is why this season is very important for me. Okay, that there are people who have built some, some of these businesses and built some fundamental rails, whether it's FinTech, health logistics, or even B2B e-Commerce.
We are quite a number of them in this season, they would all tell you that they're still building some foundational products, and, and this season is to explore, first of all, acknowledge what, what has been built. The progress that we made in terms of, uh, moving the needle forward digitally in African innovation, we've raised good money.
We have some exits already, uh, millions of people are touched by products that are built, [00:20:00]merchants are touched by product, built by B2B commerce. Much, a lot of people are touched by it, probably by Moniepoint and Paystack, but. Some of the episode touched on the fact that these guys are still building some foundational infrastructure products that will unlock value for other people.
And I'm really keen for us as we explore this season and a lot of listeners, will find out that we can acknowledge what we have done so far in terms of success, but we can also see and look forward to. more things that can be built, foundational things that can be built and, and some of the. episode touched on that, but also talking about the challenges of building those things as well.
There are various challenges that faced by some of these entrepreneurs around, uh, regulation, basic infrastructure that government should provide, um, that can't be built by startups, uh, people. [00:21:00] Talent, it's a big one. And scaling across multiple countries and funding, of course. Uh, those are the things that challenges that they face.
And I hope that people explore this podcast. People listen to this season. They will explore some of those challenges, some of those lessons. And there'll be entrepreneurs that will draw a line, uh, put some puzzles together to be able to form new things that we'll then talk about in the next season as well.
Osarumen O: Amazing. I'm, I'm excited for the ecosystem to listen to this and for it to continue to drive the next generation of entrepreneurs. Final question. What are some of your favorite episodes from the season?
Dotun O: The season is still going on, so I will parry that question. There's a lot of conversations, I think I will say, I will not say favorite, I've say interesting conversation.
The episode with Mark Straub smile, ID smile, ID. Was animating and interesting. Um, we, we had it in his office in London on a cold December, afternoon. And we were in a pod, a pod in his office. I [00:22:00] think it's a meeting port, uh, which excludes a lot of noise. And there are people, uh, I think there was, uh, someone who had to set up the audio was outside and someone from his team was also outside as well, I think was Peace Itimi.
She was outside and, and both of us were just lost in the world of, that conversation was great. Conversation about identity, uh, uh, infrastructure, FinTech. Also a team. And at the end of the episode, and I came out of the pod and I was talking to Peace and she said, you guys were like just having some fantastic stuff that we can't hear you.
We can see how animated both of you are. And, and, and, and that actually encapsulated the episode. Like that episode. It was quite, it was a conversation. It wasn't, it wasn't like an interview. It was a great conversation and that stood out for me. Um, the other one that is interesting was Shola coming back again on this episode.
We, we had the interview in Lagos. Uh, it was quite good. , it was good to ask Shola on the show again. Uh, uh, [00:23:00] looping in, uh, because he was one of the earliest people I interviewed, uh, and having him again after successful exit. To Stripe, founding a football club, uh, we are able to talk about so many things and that's interesting.
But all the episode, to be honest, uh, whether it was the one with Tosin, which was great, 'cause again, that was like a conversation. 'cause Tosin Eniolorunda and I are, are good friends and we worked together. It was a great conversation, uh, when I would want with, uh, ANU or, Bode they were all interesting conversations so far.
And I think there's a common thread. That, that joined everyone together, which is these guys have built, great business, but they're still hungry to do more things and, adding into the body of knowledge or the body of work, uh, that this ecosystem is still accumulating and all of them are building the future of the continent using innovation.
That, that to me is great.
Osarumen O: Thank you so much. Dotun. Uh, and just as a reminder for the audience, do not forget to subscribe to Building the Future Podcast everywhere you listen to [00:24:00] podcasts and anticipate the season coming. We're excited.
Dotun O: Before we go, I would like to shout out to, Osarumen, you one of the people that encourage me a lot to, to, to get into this season.
The person I really want to shout out was Leo Stiegler mid last year actually. Push me hard and say, Dotun, you need to start this podcast again. I wanna work with you. Is it money or is it time or whatever I'm gonna create? And he actually really, really pushed me hard to think about it. Because it felt that there's a gap. Uh, there are lots of podcasts now, but there's a gap that I've left that needs to be filled back. And so, uh, shout out to Leo, shout out to, to, to you for also helping me and working with me on this season as a producer.
Osarumen O: It's been an honor and a pleasure. Thank you, Leo for pushing the turn. I'm excited that the ecosystem is gonna get to hear this
Dotun O: good.