African Diaspora Network had the pleasure of facilitating a Builders of Africa’s Future (BAF) entrepreneur participation at this year’s African Business Angel Network (ABAN) Congress in Lagos Nigeria. ABAN is a pan-African network organization for angel investors providing valuable human and financial capital to startups.
ABAN Congress: Africa Must Fund Africa
Attending an event of this caliber was “invigorating and transformational” for our entrepreneur, Bidemi Ojo BAF’25, Co-founder and CEO of Gleeworld Pharmacy. Bidemi shared “As a founder building a digital healthcare infrastructure company, it was crucial to be in the room where the continent’s most active investors and ecosystem shapers converge”.
The atmosphere was electric, moving the conversation past theoretical challenges toward practical, actionable solutions for the continent. The convening also provided a vital reality check. While enthusiasm is high, translating conversation into executed deals can be slow due to the nature of mobilization and systemic bureaucracy. Bidemi noted that building in Africa requires both grit and patience. It’s not just about the pitch, it’s about persistence, strategic follow up and understanding nuances of an investor readiness.
ADN Entrepreneur Building an Ecosystem: Collaboration over Competition
For Bidemi, one of the most exciting results of attending ABAN was the founder to founder collaboration that served as a catalyst for new partnership and potential investment.
- Collaboration with Famasi Africa: A promising connection was fostered with Adeola Ayoola, co-founder of Famasi Africa– the Operating System (OS) for pharmacies in emerging markets- and a fellow BAF’23 entrepreneur. Despite playing in the same market, they recognized that their approaches are complementary and agreed to work together on digital infrastructure and data exchange.
- Integration Partnership with MyQura: Bidemi also met with Abiola Ayilara, Founder of MyQura– Africa’s first fully integrated, tech-driven care ecosystem- discussing integrating Gleeworld’s Pharmacy Medfinder tool to deliver medication adherence and access support to MyQura’s clients, creating a valuable end-to-end service.
- Regional Learning and Expansion: Another key conversation with Clemence Exaudi, Co-founder and COO of Dawa Mkononi, a Tanzanian B2B pharmaceutical company where our entrepreneur learned from their innovative financial model that used pharmacy sales data to build credit ratings and enable banks to fund inventory- a model Bidemi plans to adapt and localize for the Nigerian context.
These collaborations embody founders learning from each other, connecting across regions, and building practical alliances that strengthen the continental healthtech ecosystem.
Solving “Wicked Problems”: The Value of Strategic Alignment
A valuable insight for our entrepreneur was the strong investor appetite for startups solving “wicked problems” with deep domain expertise.While the connections made were invaluable, the follow-up process provided equally important lessons that are already reshaping their fundraising approach:
- Immediate Feedback & Iteration: The value of securing real-time strategic feedback from top-tier VCs, allowing founders to validate and refine producst roadmap.
- Strict Thesis Qualification: The necessity of quickly qualifying potential partners and investors for strict investment thesis alignment early on to avoid wasted effort and ensure all follow-ups are highly targeted.
- Conversion Speed Challenge: Recognizing gap between networking and action and the need for greater agility and less bureaucracy in the angel ecosystem.
Continued Opportunities for ADN Entrepreneurs: Bridging Connections to Investment
We remain steadfast in our goal to create an environment where innovation thrives and Africans, African diaspora and descendants of Africans can turn their bold ideas into impactful solutions.
Hearing directly from top VCs allowed me to refine my pitch in real-time. For instance, the specific feedback pushed us to emphasize our "beyond medicines" strategy, focusing on AI-powered diagnostics, pharmacist-led patient adherence, and data-driven pharmacy management, strengthening our value proposition and immediately validating our product roadmap for the next 12 months. Attending also allowed me to benchmark our traction against similar-stage startups and identify collaboration opportunities within the healthcare and healthtech ecosystem.
The African Diaspora Network is deeply grateful to the African Business Angel Network (ABAN) Congress for making opportunities like this possible for our entrepreneurs. Consider contributing to ADN’s end of year giving which will allow us to continue supporting visionary entrepreneurs. Click here to donate to the African Diaspora Network and amplify our impact.
