54 Collectives Andrew Obuoforibo talks rebranding from Founders Factory Africa, non-dilutive loans, others

54 Collective, the venture capital firm formerly known as Founders Factory Africa, announced its rebranding a few days ago. With that move, the company said it was evolving its business model to better support transformative technology ventures across the continent through catalytic capital and value-added support through its Venture Success Platform.

This unique combination of significant funding and comprehensive support distinguishes 54 Collective as the only Venture Capital firm in Africa offering early-stage founders with the highest amount of catalytic capital and support from the largest Africa-based venture capital team with over 70 staff members in Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria and the UK.

“Our catalytic capital and value-add support to founders, through our Venture Success Platform, signifies our evolution and ongoing mission to support entrepreneurs across Africa and enable them to build without boundaries to drive commercial and impact returns. Our name change to 54 Collective communicates our continued commitment to African founders. We are more supportive than ever of unlocking opportunities for entrepreneurs and ensuring a level playing field for youth and women founders,” commented 54 Collective CEO Bongani Sithole.

54 Collective, offers equity and non-dilutive capital up to a total of $500,000, enabling founders to scale their ventures across the continent. To break barriers of access, female founders receive an additional $150k, to their male counterparts, in the form of non-dilutive capital. 

Speaking about its new extension for female founders, the Country Manager (Nigeria) of 54 Collective, Andrew Obuoforibo told Technext that apart from applying, women founders do not need to do much to position themselves. They just need to continue doing what they are doing which is working on building amazing startups because the VC is now positioned to see them.

“They do not have to position themselves in any other way because women founders are already doing amazing work. Not just in Nigeria but all across Africa, same as men founders. We just have rockstar founders doing their thing, working very hard, building in very difficult situations. We are not asking women founders to position themselves in some different way apart from just continuing to be awesome. What we are saying is that as a VC, we are now positioning ourselves to see them,” he said.

54 Collective is extending funding to include non-dilutive loans

The privilege of non-dilutive loans is not one many investors are keen to offer because of its very nature. Non-dilutive loans are funds given to startups, not in exchange for shares or ownership. This form of funding does not dilute the founders’ ownership of their own startups. Andrew explained that having been in the African market for some time,  54 Collective has discovered that many African startups fail because they do not have enough runway to keep building their business to get to the next race.

He pointed out that the amount of money an investor is willing to give startups in exchange for equity on the first cheque or second cheque is not enough to get them to the next cheque. And early-stage investors will not be willing to invest more money for that same stake. So something has to give.

“We came up with this idea of adding non-dilutive loans to the equity financing that we also give to get our founders to that next cheque. That is the entire goal there. And this is part of what we mean when we talk about redefining investment so that entrepreneurs can build without boundaries because the way investment was working before was leading to a lot of entrepreneurs getting stranded. There was a boundary in terms of financing to get to the next cheque. And so we have broken that boundary by having these non-dilutive loans,” he said.

He said this is one of the ways 54 Collective is building global companies out of African startups; by helping them navigate the vast array of challenges they would encounter during that journey. He said that, as a venture capital firm, they understand the vast nuances in Africa and have recruited a team of world-class experts who understand the various African markets deeply. With this team, they can help portfolio startups navigate those African markets easily even as they grow and expand because the whole idea is to help them grow beyond their local market at the end of the day.

See also: Founders Factory Africa closes $114 million round to better serve founders in Africa

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