Why EchoVC Made Its First AI Investment In Kenyan Startup KOSA.ai
Kenyan startup KOSA.ai recently announced an undisclosed pre-seed funding round from top investors to enable it develop its platform. In a continent where investment in AI tech startups is low, KOSA.ai’s investment is notable for a number of reasons, including the fact that it has further proven that there should be no barriers for startups in that field receiving finance.
Investment in KOSA.ai came from EchoVC Partners which was joined by members of an EchoVC-led syndicate comprising Dale Mathias, TheContinent Venture Partners, Fine Day Ventures, and Arch Capital.
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The investment will enable the one-year-old startup to scale its platform.
Why EchoVC And Other Investors Invested In KOSA
According to EchoVC, the investment came to KOSA.ai partly because the VC believes Artificial Intelligence (AI) will have an impact on consumers and businesses unlike any other technology that exist, and has been dubbed “the greatest economic opportunity of our lifetime,” with estimates of $16 trillion in global economic contributions through 2030 ($8.7 trillion excluding China).
However, given that the startup is barely a year-old, it seems that the investment went to KOSA.ai for other reasons, chief among them being the strength of its team.
“We view KOSA as a multi-vertical, layered approach to participating in the AI sector. Our investment thesis is centered on backing two exceptional founders, tackling a difficult — yet inevitable — problem; in a massive opportunity set,” EchoVC said in a statement.
“Layla Li and Sonali Sanghrajka, the co-founders of KOSA, impressed us with their backgrounds, their agility and ambition; and their vision to scale KOSA into a global business — potentially becoming an industry-standard in “fair AI”.” It added.
KOSA.ai isn’t the first Kenyan AI firm to raise money from venture capitalists. UTU Technologies, a Kenyan AI and blockchain firm, acquired a US$500,000 bridge investment round in 2019 to ensure it had enough runway to complete its Series A, which was planned for 2020 but has yet to be completed. UTU Technologies, which graduated from the Starfleet accelerator offered by Ventures, is constructing a trust infrastructure for the digital economy on the ternity blockchain. Kepple Africa Ventures, SoftBank Group’s SubsidiaryDeepCore, Artesian, Animoca, and others spearheaded the investment.
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A Look At What KOSA.ai Does
Founded in 2020 by Layla Li and Sonali Sanghrajka, KOSA is a data analytics and algorithmic startup that helps businesses uncover, audit, and explain bias in their AI models, as well as take corrective action to eliminate or minimize the bias. KOSA can also help businesses analyze their AI models after they’ve been deployed for any “bias drift.” Additionally, KOSA allows businesses to specify AI KPIs as well as “fairness” for their AI models.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer