Startupbootcamp AfriTech Accelerator (Kaya Responsible Travel) - South Africa

Kaya Responsible Travel - South Africa

Final Report: Startupbootcamp Afritech - Kaya Responsible Travel, South Africa

From the basement of my home in Connecticut, I had the opportunity to virtually intern for a team living in Cape Town, South Africa, working with some of the most promising startups on the African continent. For the summer of 2020, I spent eight weeks working for Startupbootcamp AfriTech, a branch of one of the world’s best accelerator programs. Accelerator programs are an opportunity for entrepreneurs with ideas to create their own company with the support of mentors and business leaders, and access to top-notch resources. For Startupbootcamp, entrepreneurs give up a small percentage of their company in exchange for money that goes to pay for their housing and daily expenses, which allows them to purely focus on growing their business. For the past three years, Startupbootcamp AfriTech has run a 3-month program that has taken in 10 companies per cohort.

In coming on as an intern for Startupbootcamp AfriTech, I was to be working with two supervisors, with whom I would meet and report to daily. The overall goal of me working as an intern was to be able to find out how to sell off the equity that was owned in the 30 companies that had been through the accelerator program. Since the African continent has a lack of capital for investments and selling off the equity in startups is traditionally very difficult even in large markets such as the United States, the situation would be very unprecedented, and I would have to try and figure out a solution that had not been done before.

At the beginning of my internship, I first started exploring and looked for African venture capital firms that would be interested in buying equity in the startups. I created spreadsheets with contact information, specific information for each firm, where on the continent they specialized, and also how large of transaction sizes they had completed. After around three weeks, I was able to get access to a spreadsheet that had been shared around to the African venture capital firms and startup companies on the continent, which was able to give me an inside look into how interconnected many of the investors were, as my supervisors even knew many of the people on the list. While the spreadsheet helped me add to my list of potential firms to reach out to, it also showed me a glimpse of how hard the industry is working to boost itself forward, as many of the firms wanted to help the entrepreneurs be able to thrive and were giving their direct contact information to provide assistance in a variety of ways.

After working for several weeks compiling the lists of potential contacts to reach out to, my supervisors started to give me more responsibility and assigned me the task of completing a grant proposal for the United States Agency for International Development, specifically focused on helping South African startups. In using the grant proposal as a guide, we worked to design and map out a hypothetical follow-on fund that would buy out all of the startup equity from the Startupbootcamp AfriTech portfolio, and also proceed to give the portfolio companies additional funding so that they could continue to thrive. Since the USAID grant proposal would only fund several hundred thousand dollars, I also was assigned with creating a model for how much money would be needed in total from other investors to make the follow-on fund work, as the total would be several million dollars. After finishing up my grant proposal for USAID, I only had around two weeks left in my virtual internship, so the remaining time was spent on trying to clean up some of the spreadsheets that had gotten messy over the three years since Startupbootcamp AfriTech was founded. In applying some of the knowledge learned from my courses here at Notre Dame, I created a spreadsheet that would allow us to track all of the startups, while only needing to put in minimal data due to the formulas that were being used.

In working with such a small team, my supervisors allowed me to provide a lot of input, giving my work meaning and a real impact. I believe that I was successful in assisting the team, since despite the limited amount of time I had to work with them I was still able to accomplish some of the large tasks that they were working on. Furthermore, I was able to get them started on the creation of the follow-on fund, which will provide great benefits for the African startups that are in the portfolio.

In working with Startupbootcamp AfriTech, I had two primary goals from the beginning: to learn more about the financial sector in emerging markets such as in South Africa, and to also gain hands-on experience that will help me determine what I want to do for a career. Very early on I was able to learn a lot more than I expected about what emerging markets look like, as during the daily meetings with my supervisors, they would constantly answer any questions I had and provide insight. While I do not know for certain what I want to do for a career, working with startups in emerging markets showed me how much potential there is in the space, and has made me want to dive deeper and learn more about how I can get involved further.

After not getting enough rest due to 8:00am meetings daily, I quickly learned the importance of time management, as waiting to do my work at night was hindering my success the following morning. Furthermore, I learned a great deal about communicating properly and effectively, as once noon rolls around on the East Coast, reaching out to the South African’s becomes impossible with the time differential. The program allowed me to gain real-world experience that is necessary for many jobs, with project management being one of the most important. Trying to collaborate to get the USAID proposal written was not necessarily the quickest process, but in doing so, I learned how necessary it was to divide up the work that needed to get done. I found when I had moments of struggle such as with the USAID proposal, I was able to learn the most about my work habits and what I needed to do better for the next assignment.

While working virtually is not the same as being in person, my experience has inspired me to travel to South Africa and to different parts of the African continent once the time arrives and it becomes safe to do so. In working with the Startupbootcamp AfriTech team, my goals were far exceeded and I am extremely fortunate to be given such an opportunity, especially so early on in my college career.