Hello {{first_name}},
On the last day of April, we held our AMA, Africa's AI Moment: Build, Buy, or Be Left Behind?, with Dr. Chinasa T. Okolo (Technecultura) and Hasan Luongo (Resilience17). The conversation was sharp, insightful and as always, held deep contextual relevance.
A few takeaways worth keeping:
Niche, contextualised AI tools built for the realities of African users (high data costs, feature phones, local languages) tend to outperform the chase for the biggest, fastest models.
The long-term strategy for the continent should focus on both 'applied AI' and foundational infrastructure, including investments in data digitization and sovereign hardware to ensure local control over the technological stack.
African startups are already successfully moving beyond experimental phases by deploying AI to solve critical, localized operational inefficiencies in sectors like accounting and education.
There are already HoaQ portfolio companies generating real, repeatable revenue with applied AI, including Tyms (an accounting software billing in USD across Western markets). We also have a deal currently open for an AI-powered intelligence and verification platform used for collecting, validating, and extracting data from documents. These are clear validations of our speakers’ perspectives. If you missed the session, watch the full conversation on YouTube here.
This week we also co-hosted a Founders Exchange in San Francisco, bringing community founders, operators, and investors into a smaller-room conversation off the calendar. And on May 29, we'll be at ATS London for the summit's 10th edition. More on that below.
As for the rest of today’s edition, we bring you the deals currently open on Borderless, a Termii portfolio spotlight, and news we love (including the new ABAN 2025 Angel Investment Report, which HoaQ General Manager Folakemi Osho made a contribution to).
Let's get into it.
Upcoming AMA Session
Building African Fintech Infrastructure: Talent, Operations & Execution
May 28, 2026 | 5:00 PM (GMT+1) | Online
African fintech has attracted more capital than any other sector on the continent. But the harder conversation isn't about funding. It's about what happens after the round closes: who you hire, how you build, and whether the operational foundation underneath can actually hold.
This session is about the work. The infrastructure decisions that rarely make headlines but determine whether a fintech scales or stalls. We're looking at talent pipelines, operational architecture, and what execution really looks like when you're building financial systems across fragmented markets.
If you've joined our AMAs before, you know these conversations are grounded, direct, and worth your time. If this is your first, it's a strong entry point into how serious operators think about building in Africa.
Whether you're a founder navigating your next hire, an investor pressure-testing a portfolio company, or an operator thinking about what sustainable growth actually requires, this one is relevant to you.
We currently have four exciting deals still open on the platform. Log in to your Borderless dashboard to explore them.
DÒDÒ (New)
Industry: Premium Spirits / Consumer
DÒDÒ is positioning to own the premium spirits category for the African diaspora, a customer segment that is large, culturally influential, underserved, and willing to pay. They are a diaspora-native brand and the only plantain-infused premium rum globally, with no directly comparable products in existence. If you're paying attention to how the diaspora spends, this is a category worth watching.
Explore the DÒDÒ deal on Borderless.Aktivate
Industry: Creator Marketing Infrastructure
Aktivate is building the operating system for creator marketing in Africa. The platform enables businesses to discover, manage, and pay creators seamlessly, while allowing creators to access brand deals, monetise content, and earn income from a single platform. By combining marketplace dynamics with embedded payments and workflow tools, Aktivate is turning a fragmented, manual process into scalable, data-driven infrastructure. With tens of thousands of vetted creators and hundreds of businesses already onboarded, Aktivate has established early market leadership across Africa's fast-growing creator economy.
Explore the Aktivate deal on Borderless.
Aktivate closes in 5 days.InfraRed
Industry: Document Intelligence & Verification
InfraRed is building a document intelligence and verification platform that enables individuals and companies to collect, validate, and extract structured data from documents quickly and securely. The platform combines AI-powered extraction, fraud detection, and automated workflows into a single layer. Founded by a team with deep experience across EY, KPMG, and Zopa Bank, InfraRed already has paying customers across Nigeria and Australia, with early enterprise interest from digital lenders and fintechs. If you've ever dealt with manual document processing in financial services, you know how painful it is. InfraRed is fixing that.
Explore the InfraRed deal on Borderless.
InfraRed closes in 5 days.
Why Join HoaQ?
Our newsletter gives you the highlights, but a HoaQ membership gives you access to the rooms where the real thing happens. Members get early access to vetted startup deals, physical hangouts with fellow investors and founders, a private community of over 1,200 professionals and operators across 35+ countries, and exclusive portfolio company discounts.
HoaQ Referral Program
We launched our newsletter referral program in the last edition!
This is a quick reminder for anyone who missed it. If you're looking to start your angel investment journey, HoaQ is offering an opportunity to earn discounts on our membership fees through our newsletter referral program!
Here's how it works: share your referral link, and when people sign up to HoaQ's newsletter through it, you unlock rewards at every milestone.
5 successful referrals → 25% off your next HoaQ membership fee
10 successful referrals → 50% off your next HoaQ membership fee
20 successful referrals → Your next membership fee is on us (100% off)
The community grows through thoughtful invitations like yours. If you know people who should be in this room, now there's another reason to bring them in.
Portfolio Spotlight
This week, we're spotlighting Termii, a HoaQ portfolio company building communications API infrastructure for African businesses. Termii lets companies reach customers across SMS, WhatsApp, voice, and email through a single integration, making it easier to verify users, send transactional alerts, and run customer engagement at scale. The platform has become core infrastructure for fintechs, lenders, and consumer apps across the continent that need to land messages reliably.
Termii is also gearing up for Termii Elevate 5.0, the latest edition of their flagship communications tech conference for Africa's tech ecosystem.
If you're building or investing in products that depend on reliable customer messaging, keep an eye on it here.
News We Love
We are proud to share some exciting updates from our portfolio and the larger community:
The ABAN 2025 Angel Investment Report just dropped, and it is a useful read for anyone tracking how angel capital is moving across the continent. The report covers 62 angel networks across 37 African countries that collectively deployed over $4.4 million in 2025, with 65% of backed startups securing follow-on funding. Read it here.
Applications are now open for the Accelerate Africa Startup Programme 2026, the 12-week pan-African accelerator backed by Future Africa. The programme selects 10 founders building scalable, technology-driven businesses, with the option of a $250K to $500K pre-seed or seed cheque from the Accelerate Africa fund at the end of the programme (no upfront equity). Apply here.
Bellatrix Investment Managers, a Namibia-based alternative investment firm, just launched the Ndjaba Seed Fund, a $10 million venture vehicle backing 35 to 50 early-stage Southern African startups. The fund spans fintech, agritech, healthtech, education, clean energy, e-commerce, and enterprise software. More dedicated capital flowing into Southern Africa's early-stage ecosystem is good news for everyone watching the region. Read more here.
What Members are Reading and Listening to
Folakemi Osho, General Manager at HoaQ, was spotlighted this week by WeTech Africa. The conversation covers how she thinks about capital, community, and the practical work of building inside Africa's innovation ecosystem. If you are navigating the same waters from the operator or investor side, it is worth your time. Read here.
TechCabal's latest funding tracker breaks down where African startups stand in the race to $1 billion in H1 2026. The headline number: $887 million raised across just 84 deals through the first four months of the year, with capital concentrating into larger rounds while early-stage activity slows. Read here.
Upcoming Events
Africa Tech Summit London
May 29, 2026 | London Stock Exchange
ATS London is back for its 10th edition, bringing 350+ attendees from 200+ companies under one roof at the London Stock Exchange to drive business across the African tech ecosystem. HoaQ will be in the building as a partner! We would love to connect with anyone in our community who is attending.
Use code HoaQ10 for 10% off tickets at checkout. Register here.
World Product Day
May 20, 2026 | Global
Mind the Product's annual celebration of product makers brings together meet-ups, talks, and community gatherings around the world. If you build product or work alongside teams that do, this is the day to plug into the global product community. A plus: Folakemi Osho will be judging at the panel sessions.
Learn more here
Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter all the way to the end.
Till next time,
Wisdom from HoaQ.
Remember: investing in startups carries inherent risks. We encourage you to conduct your own due diligence before committing capital.
