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VentureKit

VentureKit's goal is to help organize growing but hard-to-find data on resources that can help new ventures in Africa to scale. We do this by tracking data on the venture support industry to make it easier for anyone to surface accurate and locally relevant data.

Background

Starting a technology venture in emerging markets can be especially challenging compared to developed markets where things like reliable power and Internet are taken for granted. Despite the prevalence of these twin challenges, lots of people still start companies, except that, instead of working out of a garage (as told in Silicon Valley lore), people are improvising by working out of shared workspaces to help defray the high costs of reliable power and Internet.

A related consequence of this is a steady rise, across Africa, in the number of local and foreign entities offering venture support in the form of coworking, funding, training or a combination thereof to new ventures.

One recurring problem with the African rising narrative is that it can be hard to access data and this problem is no less true of the bourgeoning venture support industry. Even with rising Internet penetration rates, it is still challenging to gain a realistic sense of the size and/or depth of the venture support industry because no one is keeping tabs in a way that is easy to access.

VentureKit is a small contribution towards solving Africa's discovery problem. Its public release should help concretize efforts to organize growing data on Africa's venture support industry and perhaps make it easier for current and future players to surface accurate and locally relevant data.

Motivation

“Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.” – African proverb

An August 5, 2016 report published by the GSMA Ecosystem Accelerator tried to gauge the size of the venture support industry in Africa.

The report acknowledged that it was difficult to find open data on the number of collaborative work spaces (aka "tech hubs") available in the African continent but its estimate for Nigeria was what caught my eye -- the total number of active tech hubs was put at 23 which was much lower than the total I had been tracking privately (34) as at the time the research backing the report was conducted.

VentureKit can be used by anyone but the first release, which contains fairly comprehensive data on Nigeria, is targetted at developers.

Built With

• css
• graphql
• html
• java
• shell