Ideas + Innovation = Impact

We partner with ambitious founders to launch and fund companies unlocking prosperity in Africa using technology.🌍 📍Lagos - Boston - Austin

Venture Studio

9 out of 10 startups fail. We have enormous challenges in Africa that cannot be left to chance. The Venture Studio is our own intervention.We partner with ambitous founders to work on ideas from day 0. Ideas are generated by us or by the founders. Our value add to founders are first-money-in belief, product design strategy, GTM strategy, co-founder recruitment and generating subsequent investor interest.We want to build ecosystems not ego-systems; so you, the founders are at the front and centre of the venture.We work on 5-10 new ideas each year. We expect 3-5 of these to become their own spin-off companies with subsequent investor backing.Have an idea? Lots of domain expertise/operator experience with no idea? Reach out and let's talk.

CompanyWhatYearEntrepreneursStatus
BumpaShopify for Africa2020Kelvin Umechukwu, Tunji OpayeleCurrent
AltschoolFuture Proof Skills College starting with coding2021Adewale Yusuf, Sultan AkintundeCurrent
TalentQLConnecting tech talent with employers2021Adewale Yusuf, Sultan Akintundeacq. by Altschool
DojahKYC and Identity verification for Africa2021Tobi Ololade, Ayomide OsoCurrent
BuzzlineMobile OS for solo entrepreneurs2021Jay Osobu, Bayo AjibadeCurrent

Fund

Fast Forward invests in scalable tech-enabled companies at pre-seed stage via a syndicate structure.We are sector agnostic and typically look for opportunities in B2B, B2B2C, Fintech, eCommerce, job creation, future of work, edtech, healthcare, logistics, deep tech, blockchain and globally scalable saas out of Africa.Opportunity Criteria
Prosperity Tech or Prosperity Catalyst.
10m people impact volume.
Clear path to >$10m ARR value in 3-5 years.
Platform and Infrastructure Plays.Team Criteria
We love working with ambitious and hungry founders, top technology talent, experienced operators and repeat entrepreneurs. We love Ivy league grads as well as dropouts with a point to prove.We are very unlikely to invest in a team without a co-founder of African origin and have a bias toward founding teams with at least one female co-founder.It's important to restate the obvious fact that not all people of Africa are black. We have and will continue to back Indians and Caucasians with roots in Africa as well.If you are a non-African founding team who wants to partner with us, we are more than happy to connect you with really great folks that might complement you.

  • Apata

  • Bumpa

  • Bank54

  • Casava

  • Convoy (YC)

  • Cova

  • Electronic Settlements Limited

  • Juni

  • Kippa

  • Klump

  • Laskie

  • Learnam

  • Miapelenou

  • moni.africa

  • Nguvu Health

  • Odiggo (YC)

  • Payday (Techstars)

  • Quabbly

  • Reliance Health

  • Rollout

  • Ropay

  • Veend

  • Venco

  • Verileum

  • Vesti

  • Yemaachi (YC)

Note: personal and syndicate investments of partners before fund launch

Team

We are founders and operators with experience launching and leading startups on the continent. This includes founding Jobberman, Africa's largest job site, launching Jumia Pay, and investing in over 50+ startups.Opeyemi - General Partner
Lara - Operating PartnerThat said, the founders we partner with are our biggest assets and we are only grateful that they chose us.

Contact Us

Are you a founder with a strong economically viable market-creating idea/company, and need support to take it to the next level? Let's talk.

hello@fastforward.fund