Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, a Nigerian entrepreneur who co-founded two “unicorns” (companies that achieve a valuation of more than $1 billion) before the age of 30, is now funding startups through his firm Future Africa. Despite the global downturn affecting tech startups, Aboyeji remains confident in Africa’s ability to build and innovate. His firm has invested over $10 million in dozens of projects, many of them fintech startups trying to improve access to loans and banking services. Aboyeji is also helming a project to build a city devoted to tech talent called Itana, which aims to house thousands of tech workers and give firms tax breaks and other incentives. The project has a likely budget of $500 million and is backed by Silicon Valley libertarian ideologue Peter Thiel. Aboyeji believes that African entrepreneurs should have big ambitions but cannot simply copy-paste from the playbooks of Zuckerberg or Musk. He also believes that African entrepreneurs can legitimately think about space travel, especially if their ideas can help communications in the way that Musk’s StarLink mini-satellites have.
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