Perception vs. Reality: How Fintech is Driving Africa's Digital Economy
This conversation with Africa-focused investor Barbara Iyayi takes a bird’s eye view of fintech as a cross-cutting enabler and investment opportunity, digging into how it will turbocharge Africa’s digital economy by digitizing the everyday transactions of consumers and businesses. It also tackles how Barbara conquered the challenges she faced while raising a fund as an African, female, first time GP, and how LPs can overestimate the risk of investing in emerging fund managers and African venture capital.
Barbara Iyayi is an entrepreneur and investor with over 16 years of experience in venture capital, growth equity, and financial services. She has founded, invested in, scaled and advised, fintech and financial services companies globally. Currently, Barbara is the CEO & Founding Partner of Unicorn Growth Capital, an early-stage VC firm investing in the future of fintech. She also sits on the board of the World Wide Web Foundation.
Prior to launching Unicorn, she was the Chief Growth Officer and Managing Director for Africa of Element, a pioneer of mobile deep learning, and served as the Board Chair of Appzone, a fintech infrastructure platform enabling the delivery of digital financial services in Africa. Barbara was a member of the founding team of Atlas Mara, Africa’s first SPAC, and conducted $15 billion in global transactions for JPMorgan and UBS. Barbara received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Columbia University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
In this episode, we discuss:
Prior to launching Unicorn, she was the Chief Growth Officer and Managing Director for Africa of Element, a pioneer of mobile deep learning, and served as the Board Chair of Appzone, a fintech infrastructure platform enabling the delivery of digital financial services in Africa. Barbara was a member of the founding team of Atlas Mara, Africa’s first SPAC, and conducted $15 billion in global transactions for JPMorgan and UBS. Barbara received a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Columbia University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
In this episode, we discuss:
- Why Barbara believes that African fintech is a lucrative investment opportunity
- How fintech will help digitize the transactions of Africa's consumers and businesses, and catalyze its digital economy
- How Barbara leveraged her understanding of the fintech opportunity to overcome bias and raise her first fund
- What LPs get wrong about investing in new fund managers and African venture
Barbara’s Recommended Track & Featured Resources:
- My Life. Mary J. Blige
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0eF8P177fA&list=OLAK5uy_mUVX4_2ajHRsfFeTLdtWZd78OqUwLMzm8 - Unicorn Growth Capital
https://www.unicorngrowthcap.com/ - Invest in African Investors: A long-term solution to funding underrepresented local African founders. Nacho Nwana
https://nwanacho.medium.com/invest-in-african-investors-a-long-term-solution-to-funding-underrepresented-local-african-c9c8ca1a61ff - Best Of: This Conversation Will Change How You Think About Thinking. Ezra Klein Show. (per the mention of intuition in investing)
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/best-of-this-conversation-will-change-how-you-think/id1548604447?i=1000546869257 - Chasing Outliers: Why Context Matters for Early Stage Investing in Africa. Tayo Akinyemi, Osarumen Osamuyi, and Tony Chen. (report)
https://kinyungu.com/chasing-outliers/
DJ Saphir’s Spotify Playlist:
