Hi there,
March is International Women's Month, and this year it hits close to home. Earlier this week, we spotlighted some of the incredible women founders in our ecosystem, and the response from the community reminded us why this work matters. The women building across Africa and its Diaspora are not waiting for permission. They are creating, scaling, and leading.
But it hasn’t been always been smooth sailing, and there’s still a lot of work to do. That’s why we’re going to be unpacking The Capital Gap at our AMA Session coming on March 26th. We’re inviting operators, founders and partners to dissect the topic of who gets funded, and why.
We also showed up at Moment 2026, where conversations around technology, capital, and community in Africa continued to gain momentum. We supported our portfolio companies on the ground, and HoaQ General Manager Folakemi Osho moderated an engaging session about the future of investment infrastructure on the continent. It is always energizing to be in rooms where the people building the future of the continent are present and engaged.
Today’s newsletter is a packed one. We have three deals that are still open for you spanning trade infrastructure, fintech for borderless work, and innovative food technology.
We’re also working on bringing more deals to the community this month.
Let's get into it.
Legendary Foods
Industry: Food Tech / AgriTech
Legendary Foods Africa is building the continent's first commercial-scale insect protein platform. By farming palm weevil larvae, they produce sustainable, affordable, and culturally rooted protein for West and Central African markets. This is food innovation grounded in tradition, solving a real protein access challenge with a solution that already has deep cultural acceptance.
The Legendary Foods Africa deal closes in 5 days.
Payd
Industry: Fintech
Payd is building the financial OS for borderless work. The platform enables freelancers, remote workers, and distributed teams across emerging markets to get paid globally and spend locally, fast and cheaply. As the future of work becomes increasingly distributed, Payd is positioning itself as the foundational rails that make it all possible.
Payd closes in 5 days.
Midddleman
Industry: Trade & Payments Infrastructure
Midddleman is building the trade and payments infrastructure layer for African SMEs sourcing from China. The platform combines AI-powered procurement, embedded RMB payments, and logistics aggregation into one seamless experience. For the thousands of small businesses navigating complex cross-border trade between Africa and China, Midddleman is removing friction at every step of the supply chain.
Midddleman closes in 5 days.
We are proud to share some exciting updates from our portfolio and the larger community:
Sonia Kabra took the long route to building BuuPass, and she has no regrets. This TechCabal feature tells the story of her journey from a small town in India to Nairobi's bus terminals, co-founding a platform that sold over 20 million tickets in 2024 alone. BuuPass is a HoaQ portfolio company, and Sonia's story is a reminder that the best founders often take unconventional paths. Read more here
Dr. Chinasa T. Okolo, a HoaQ member, has been selected as a 2026 World Bank Group Africa Fellow. She joins the Development Economics Research Group to work on AI models for socioeconomic development and the World Development Report. We are incredibly proud. Read more here
Nigerian AI startup Intron has expanded its speech recognition platform, Sahara, to 57 languages, adding 24 new ones including Hausa, Swahili, Yoruba, Igbo, and Wolof. Sahara v2 supports over 500 distinct African accents and outperformed systems from OpenAI, Google, and others by up to 64% on African voice datasets. This is what building AI for Africa actually looks like. Read more here
Nubi Kay’ appeared on a tech webinar to highlight strategies for overcoming the execution gap, where teams are busy but produce minimal results. Drawing on his hands-on experience in the African startup ecosystem, Nubi breaks down how to translate strategy into measurable traction. If you lead a team or work in operations, this one is for you. Watch here
Founder and investor Yacob Berhane appeared on the Afropolitan podcast to discuss venture backing on the African continent, where the next opportunities lie, and why he left investment banking to build in Africa. A great listen for anyone thinking about where capital is flowing. Watch here
Folakemi Osho spoke with Borderless for their International Women's Month feature, discussing inroads for female representation in leadership on the continent and where work remains to be done. An honest and important conversation. Read here
African Diaspora Investment Symposium 2026 (ADIS26)
March 25 to 27, 2026 | Santa Clara University, Silicon Valley
The African Diaspora Network is bringing together innovators, investors, educators, and policymakers at ADIS26. This year's theme is "Bridging Africa & Silicon Valley: Shaping the Future of Innovation, Investment, and Inclusive Growth." Expect three days of dynamic sessions covering Ethical AI, Fintech, Health Equity, Education, and immersive networking with investors ready to turn innovation into opportunity. If you are in the Bay Area or can make the trip, this is one worth attending. Learn more here
Joining the community
Joining our community is now easier than ever.
We’ve upgraded your experience. With the help Borderless, a platform that helps diaspora communities create and join investment collectives, we are giving you a smoother, more seamless experience.
If you’re yet to join us there, simply head over to our website and click ‘Join HoaQ’. You’ll be redirected to Borderless, where you can either create an account or log in if you already have one. Already a HoaQ member but yet to log in? This is a little reminder to hop on your dashboard and see what’s going on. We have a lot of exciting new offers coming in all year round.
If you’d like a step-by-step walkthrough, we put together a short video to guide you through the process. Watch the video here.
And that’s it for this newsletter! Thanks for sticking around all the way to the end.
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See you next time,
Wisdom from HoaQ.
