Raba is not a traditional “venture fund”. We are long-term business partners to founders. We operate as an investment partnership — defined as a group of people that focus their time, network, and capital to help founders build companies that generate outsized returns and solve real-world problems. We have been early partners to the founders of many category-defining African software and internet companies. This site is designed to help founders learn about who we are and what we do @Raba.
We build long-term partnerships with long-term people.
📖 The Raba Review - sharing our latest thinking
How to Beat Devaluing FX, Big IPO in a "small" market | April 2024Growth at a reasonable cost | December 2023The African Flow: A Rising Tide that Lifts All Boats | September 2023Building BIG companies in non-obvious markets, part II | April 2023Near term pain, long-term gain | November 2022100X revenue! | July 2022Raba + Stitch Summit | April 2022African Venture Capital & the GREAT compounding | December 2021Building BIG companies in non-obvious markets | October 2021Why Africa Now and why we 👀 to Latam | July 2021The next 10 years... | April 2021A seminal moment for Flutterwave! | March 2021Why we backed Stitch! | February 2021Read more
A compendium of our thoughts🏗️ 42 founders and teams we are building with
| Company | First partnered @ | Co-partners | Focus | Sector |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Cloudline | Incubation | Schmidt Futures | VKAV | Software-powered autonomous airships and last-mile logistics | Climate |
Moment | Incubation | General Catalyst | Multichoice | Rapyd | Payments and financial services | Fintech |
Axis Pay | Pre-seed | firstminute | Sawari | Tiger Global | B2B2C fintech and payments company | Fintech |
COVA | Pre-seed | Angels | Consolidated tracker for financial and digital assets | Fintech |
Cleva Banking | Pre-seed | 1984 | YCombinator | USD banking for African and global freelancers | Fintech |
Flutterwave | Pre-seed | Avenir | PayPal | Tiger Global | Payments API infrastructure across Africa | Fintech |
Fuse | Pre-seed | Shooroq | Sequoia Scout Fund | Payments and banking infrastructure for MENA | Fintech |
Octo | Pre-seed | Raba as Founding partner | Consumer wallet and companion card | Fintech |
OnePipe | Pre-seed | Tribe Capital | Banking as a service for African fintechs | Fintech |
Ramani | Pre-seed | Village Global | YCombinator | Software and payments for distributors and merchants | Fintech |
Shara | Pre-seed | Canaan | Index Ventures | Social payments and finance for African markets | Fintech |
Revivo | Pre-seed | Musha | Village Global | Electronics parts, repair, and insurance marketplace | Fintech |
Stitch | Pre-seed | firstminute | PayPal | Ribbit Capital | API infrastructure for African fintechs | Fintech |
Thndr | Pre-seed | Prosus (Naspers) | Tiger Global | Digital investment platform focused on Egypt and beyond | Fintech |
Trustcrow | Pre-seed | Angels | Real estate escrow and payments platform | Fintech |
KERA | Seed | IFC | TO.VC | AI focused on Africa | AI |
BVNK* | Seed | Avenir | Concentric | Tiger Global | Digital asset payments and banking | Fintech |
Capi | Seed | firstminute | YCombinator | Francophone cross border money movement platform | Fintech |
Cashi | Seed | Fawry | Merchant payments and software | Fintech |
FloatPays | Seed | YCombinator | Fintech software focused on earned wage access | Fintech |
Kwara | Seed | Norrsken | Softbank Emerge | Credit union focused challenger bank | Fintech |
Nile.ag | Seed | Naspers Foundry | PIP | B2B marketplace and financial infrastructure | Fintech |
SwypeX | Seed | Accel | Foundation Ventures | Spend management software and payments company | Fintech |
Djamo | Series A | Partech | Digital bank focused on Francophone Africa | Fintech |
Yoco | Series B+ | Dragoneer | TPG | Merchant payments and software starting in South Africa | Fintech |
Kobo360 | Seed | Goldman Sachs | IFC | Digital freight forwarder and logistics for Africa | Logistics |
Twiga | Seed | Goldman Sachs | IFC | Digital vertically integrated grocery for Africans | Logistics |
Lori Systems | Series A | DST | Hillhouse Capital | Trucking logistics marketplace and software for African carriers | Logistics |
Mara | Pre-seed | Alameda | Coinbase | Pan-African crypto wallet and infrastructure company | Crypto |
Nestcoin | Pre-seed | Alameda | Distributed Global | Crypto and decentralised finance infrastructure | Crypto |
Bitnob | Seed | FTX Ventures | Kingsway Capital | Lightning network payments infrastructure | Crypto |
Busha | Seed | Cadenza | Jump Capital | Crypto exchange and payments | Crypto |
Caliza | Seed | Abstract | QED | Valor | APIs for fintechs to offer crypto payments and wallets | Crypto |
Float Capital | Seed | Alameda | Maven 11 | DeFi primitives and infrastructure | Crypto |
YellowCard | Series A | Coinbase | Square Inc | Valar | Pan-African crypto payments and exchange | Crypto |
VALR | Series B | Coinbase | Pantera | Institutional crypto exchange and payments | Crypto |
Future Africa | Seed | LocalGlobe | Holding company that builds and invests in African companies | HoldingCo |
Pandora | Seed | OneBio | Genomics focused on African populations | Healthcare |
54gene | Series A | Adjuvant | KdT | YCombinator | Global medical discovery using African DNA | Healthcare |
mPharma | Series A | Breyer Capital | Social Capital | Software and data focused on digitising healthcare in Africa | Healthcare |
AMMP | Seed | Point Nine | Software tools for renewable energy companies | Climate |
TFK | Seed | a15 | CVentures | Building a fashion first ecommerce company in MENA | Consumer |
TBA = To be announced. *angel and Raba. As of 12.31.2023.
🗿 Our philosophy
We partner with founders building software and internet-first companies. We get involved early — during a time when we can have outsized impact. We have developed a series of investment themes that inform our partnership decisions. Our focus is on companies that facilitate the efficient movement of capital and essential products — the rails that enable other businesses to be built.
We believe long-term investment results are driven by a combination of an unconventional thesis, a rigorous investment process, and the ability to invest with a longer-term horizon than traditional market participants. Through our network of limited partners, we've built long-term thinking and company-building experience into our operating system from the start.
We align interests with our partners and are among the largest LPs in Raba's funds.
💪🏾 Our team
Founder and CEO
Prior @ Goldman Sachs, Shumway Capital, and Glynn Capital
Our broader team, our limited partners
We are proud to call the backers of Raba friends and partners. They come from varied backgrounds and include many of the best global investors and operators. Each is a welcome guest at our home. Partner fit and long-term relationships are at the core of our partnership. Many of our founders we have backed have invested their personal capital directly with us.
We are comfortable stating that we are NOT appropriate for most partners.
🥛 Raba © 2024 | contact us: info@rabacap.com