Teddy Ruge puts it best when he points out that “money follows money.” Many African companies find that they can’t get easy access to funding for this reason. They think they need a Mzungu (Swahili for “foreigner”) on their team in order to get grant money and attract foreign attention.
But do they? Here’s what two African founders learned for themselves.
##African Money for African Startups
“It takes time to build those networks, it’s not that we have a lot of experience, the fact that we’re entrepreneurs and hustlers is a good thing. let’s look at it positively and say it takes time to build networks”
-Felix Kimaru, Co-founder of Totohealth, Africa Prize shortlist
While he can’t deny that he understands why, Teddy Ruge totally disagrees with the strategy of putting a white foreigner in as CEO of an African company just to attract media and funding. The question is, how do you do things differently? Teddy wants African startups and funding to focus on African startups.
“When you have an ingrained perspective from your community and don’t understand that you have agency, development is not delivered in a white SUV by an 18 year old. We can do these things. Braintree farms has been a fight to deliver on that.”
- Teddy Ruge, Founder of Raintree Farms, Co-founder of Remit.ug and Hive Colab
He’s not saying it’s easy, but it needs to happen. African startups needs to seek out African money. Successful African startups need to get serious about investing in other African startups. It’s a virtuous cycle that needs to be started.
“It’s been a journey from buying my own land, employing people, to being one of the largest producers of Maringa in East Africa. I would put our quality up against anyone, trial and error, pivoting, and over and over”
- Teddy Ruge, Founder of Raintree Farms, Co-founder of Remit.ug and Hive Colab
Felix Kimaru sees the same goal: build networks of African entrepreneurs and funders. When you build networks, you build trust within those networks. That trust allows companies to function without relying on bringing in an outsider just to seem trustworthy.
So what should you do? Ultimately, every founder has to do what’s best for their company, but Kimaru and Ruge want to see fewer people relying on ‘Mzungus’ and more people relying on other Africans. Both founders believe it’s possible, founders just need to start building the networks.