The Founder and CEO of Gumroad Sahil Lavingia has expressed his desire to focus on African startups this 2021 being an early-stage startup investor cutting checks in the range of $100,000-$250,000. Sahil, who is a core investor in Cowriewise, described himself as a creator, a writer, painter, coder, designer who loves making things from scratch, early-stage is where creativity happens.
“I want to watch stuff go from zero to one. It’s also where the returns are. The hard part about the early stage is getting comfortable placing a lot of bets early, and being able to raise capital from LPs to do so. Stereotypically, Africa has a bad reputation across the world, and that is why I am interested in helping raise startups there”.
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Speaking on how his upbringing gave him a global worldview instead of a national identity, Sahil said that “I was born to Indian immigrant parents in New York, grew up in Singapore, then moved back to the States for college. So, I don’t really identify strongly with one national identity. I try to keep that in mind as I invest—I care about people making things better for other people no matter where they are based”.
Describing what triggered his decision to invest in Cowriewise, he noted that the fact that Cowriewise was already a Y-Combinator startup and a Delaware company does help. “Every startup should do that for a variety of reasons, easily googleable”, he added. Noting that “YC is nice because it means the company is set up in all the right ways, but that didn’t play a role when I invested. I’m not sure I knew”.
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“What I cared about: big market, clear GTM strategy, and a beautifully designed, well-built product. And the founder’s personality is always important too; can they hire a great team and motivate them to execute”.
On the industries he is interested in investing into in Africa, Sahil identified the Kenyan and Nigerian markets as being on his radar “but I think wherever there are enough buyers of a product, there’ll be investment interest”.
“ I am partial to Zambia because I’ve spent more time there. I cannot wait to take a trip to Africa after the pandemic is over.In terms of industry, I like pretty much everything, because I believe every part of our economy has room to get a lot better. Ecommerce, future of work, payments, logistics, shipping, b2b, and more”.
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He also pointed out that it is interesting that fintech is hot in Nigeria and across the continent. Yeah very “in” right now but if you think about it it’s just the economy—moving money around.
“So of course it’s huge, it just has a new name. Housing, healthcare are also massive, though I know much less about it. It’s much easier to invest in software from abroad, in terms of vetting the product and understanding the market”.
Speaking on the African companies he has invested in, Sahil pointed out that his best investment in terms of absolute returns is probably Bitcoin. Or Stellar. On startups, he named Clubhouse, Notion, Figma, Lambda School, HelloSign, Movable Ink, Vercel are all doing very well.
“In Africa I have two so far: Sote and Cowrywise. I would love to do at least one per quarter. So, four a year. My plan is to invest millions of dollars into Africa and India over the coming years. I believe it is the future.”
Kelechi Deca
Kelechi Deca has over two decades of media experience, he has traveled to over 77 countries reporting on multilateral development institutions, international business, trade, travels, culture, and diplomacy. He is also a petrol head with in-depth knowledge of automobiles and the auto industry