GFA Fundraising Cohort Program 2022 Day1: Orientation & Recap

GetFundedAfrica’s Fundraising Cohort Program, began today, Tuesday, May 31, 2022, with 11 founders, nine GetFundedAfrica staff and an online orientation session. The theme of this cohort is rain mainly GetFundedAfrica will be breaking the record and helping the 11 lucky startups to raise funds in just 90 days i.e we will make it rain.

The businesses were The Balance Bowl, Dillish Foods, Gist Mobile, Olillii Foods, Pave, Popote Payments, Regxta, Staffbus, Trade Lenda, Tribease, and Zvendo. From Abia to New York, from Egypt to Lagos, from the UK to Nairobi, they all converged online for the first time and on the first day of the program.

Getting started

Diana Teoh, head of investor relations for GetFundedAfrica, welcomed all present and requested a round of quick, informal introduction by everyone, beginning with GetFundedAfrica staff.

During his introduction, CEO/Co-founder of GetFundedAfrica, Debo Omololu, reiterated the goal of the cohort program: “This is a fundraising program. By day 90, every one of you should have raised funds for your businesses.”

Thereafter, the 11 founders spoke briefly about their businesses, backgrounds and unique traits.

Ground rules and mutual expectations for the program. As part of the orientation process, the founders received three codes of conduct for the program:

• there are no stupid questions
• all sorts of honest feedback is welcome, and
• bear in mind that every individual’s time is highly valued here.

As well as mutual expectations between them and team GetFundedAfrica and the founders.

Efe Ogundowole, head of learning & development of GetFundedAfrica, stated that the program was designed to help them get to their funding success. In order for team GetFundedAfrica team to help them, they should ensure that all deliverables were completed as and when due, follow up on one another’s action items, unlearn and relearn, keep an open and growth mindset, and, most of all, have fun.

The GetFundedAfrica story

Debo Omololu, CEO/Cofounder of GetFundedAfrica, took the founders through a brief history of GetFundedAfrica, the venture service firm behind the cohort

program. How the goal of the firm was to fill the huge gap of funding experienced by start-ups. And how to effectively mine his vast financial experience and his co-founder’s, Tunji, in order to achieve that goal. He told them that the GetFundedAfrica story was their story too because it was built to serve them and help them overcome the challenges SMEs face in Africa. He assured them they and their businesses were in capable, good hands. He also talked about the firm’s partnerships, its three-element approach and the funding circle which will be available to the founders.

Program structure in a nutshell

Before outlining the structure of the cohort program, Tunji Oke, COO/Cofounder of GetFunded Africa, urged all founders to be focused during the program, letting them know that it would take time and resources on their part to do so.

The three months’ program is structured as follows:

• month one: fundraising preparation
• month two: investor matching and pitching
• month three: deal negotiation and closing

The above arrangement will include e-self learning on Remana, GetFundedAfrica’s learning platform which is a mix of live-sessions and self-paced video courses.

There will also be weekly, one-on-one check-ins with founders at designated time slots where they can discuss challenges, deliverables and any other relevant issue to their businesses.

Peer learning will feature too, and founders will be put into groups of three or more people to talk about their business issues, similarities and differences, with fellow founders.

The founders will also form another type of group, called mini groups, during the program for the purpose of activities and workshops.

Mentors – industry experts – will be assigned to the founders to share their knowledge, advice and experience. Each founder will be allocated at least four mentors.

Lastly, there will be community events; fun events that will balance out the intensity of the program.

Impromptu elevator pitch session

All the founders were requested to make an impromptu elevator pitch to all as a form of practice to potential investors. They were given one minute to do so, and a questionnaire distributed to both founders and GetFundedAfrica staff in order to rate them accordingly. The questionnaire had two questions: 1.) How well do you

understand this start-up’s pitch? (To be rated on a scale of 1 – 10; with 1 being you have no idea what the start-up is about, and 10 being you get it.). 2.) If you are an investor, will you invest in this start-up? (Yes/No).

And in alphabetical order, starting with The Balance Bowl and rounding off with Zvendo, the founders gave it their all.

Breakout sessions

The orientation ended on a fun note.

All the participants were shared into five different groups to interact for a few minutes to discover how many similarities they all had together. The winning group had about eight things in common.