UrbanGeekz 50: Africa

Iyinoluwa Aboyeji – Future Africa

Nigerian-based tech entrepreneur and investor, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, holds the enviable record of cofounding two African tech unicorns – Andela (a global talent marketplace) and Flutterwave (a FinTech company).

He is currently the CEO and Founding Partner of Future Africa, through which he has invested in over 100 companies across various continents. The venture capital firm’s investment is worth over $6 billion in sectors such as FinTech, EdTech, HealthTech, and AgriTech.

Aboyeji is the founding investor in Moove, a flexible car ownership platform that empowers Uber drivers in Nigeria, and Itana, a network of charter cities for African technology talent.

Maya Horgan Famodu – Ingressive Capital

Nigerian-American venture capital investor and entrepreneur, Maya Horgan Famodu was the first solo woman to raise a tech fund (Ingressive Capital) in Nigeria. Before founding Ingressive in her twenties, Famodu conducted emerging market economic research in Southern Africa and LatAm, taking students with her to explore keys to sustainable economic development.

Famodu started Ingressive Capital in 2017 with a $10 million early-stage VC focused on tech-enabled businesses across sub-Saharan Africa. Ingressive has worked with Y Combinator, 500 Startups, New Relic, USAID, GitHub, Techstars, and many others who seek to enter the region.

Some of Ingressive Capital portfolio companies include Paystack, Bamboo, Carry1st, Mono, Tizeti, Lenco, Jetstream, 54Gene, and OZÉ. She’s also a cofounder at Ingressive for Good, a nonprofit providing micro-scholarships, technical skills training, and talent placement; as well as Ingressive Advisory, an advisory firm providing market entry/market ops services and tech research for corporates and investors.

Gregory Rockson – mPharma

Gregory Rockson is a tech entrepreneur standing at the cutting edge of potential revolutions in West Africa’s health sector. In a bid to solve the problem of high prices and lack of access to drugs, Gregory launched mPharma in 2014.

The platform is a patient-centred technology-driven healthcare company providing innovative solutions through three main business units: Wholesale, Retail, and Diagnostics. Its portfolio of solutions includes vendor-managed inventory services, primary care solutions for community pharmacies and data analytics. Since launching in Ghana, mPharma has expanded and grown to 10 African countries and currently serves more than 200,000 patients monthly.

Rockson is an alumnus of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community. He was a Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and a Rotary Scholar at the University of Copenhagen. Rockson also founded the Big Brother Big Sister program in Denmark and the Six Days of Peace Project in the Middle East.