Zrosk Early Ventures
Our
mission
is to be an early backer of the next generation of
African entrepreneurs at home or abroad enabling them to create
category-defining businesses.
We are unashamed to state quite clearly that we are on a mission to support African founders irrespective of where they are. We believe the acute shortage of capital on the African continent also rings true for African entrepreneurs in the diaspora. We are of the view that society losses out by ignoring the ideas of over 1bn+ people (c15% of the global population).
We are on a mission to become the early-stage investor of choice for technology and tech-enabled African-founded businesses. Our commitment goes beyond providing capital; we aim to be one of the most prominent value-added investors on a company’s cap table. We invest across the Pre-Seed to Series A spectrum, typically targeting between 5-15% ownership in the businesses we invest in. We strive to maintain this position up until Series A, providing much-needed early follow-on capital for our portfolio companies. Our ticket size ranges from $100,000 to $4,000,000, depending on the stage of investment.
In situations where the business model permits, we will also consider some version of non-equity financing which should allow founders to extend their runway and achieve critical milestones before raising dilutive equity capital.
We are sector agnostic but currently have investments across Fintech, SAAS, entertainment tech/web 3.0, mobility and logistics, business services tech and e-commerce.
At Zrosk we do not define success by a company’s ability to continually raise money and achieve a unicorn valuation. Our
principal objective is to help founders to create highly successful businesses and leave the market to decide what the business is worth. We like to think from the perspective of “permanent” capital. We invest in businesses in which we believe we will be very reluctant sellers.
- What we look out for
- Founders must be African or of African descent
- You have more than just an idea – evidence of initial traction
- Your business must be at an early stage (Pre-Seed to Series A)
- Business and some revenue model clarity
- Attractive and calculable unit economics.
- A realistic estimate of market size
- Strong founding team with a technical edge.
- We want to hear about your failures.