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Exclusive: Nigerian VC firms are considering collaborating to check unethical founders
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#venture capital
#funding
“Nobody here can check him. He is the founder; and to him, that means that he is God.” That’s Pearl, the co-founder of an Africa-focused fintech firm, speaking to me about the startup’s founder. Pearl asked to be identified by a pseudonym to avoid clashes with this founder. “He is always at loggerheads with investors,” she adds. “But we have to keep up with it. We are in a fragile ecosystem and cannot avoid the bad PR. That will be bad for everyone.”
Several African-focused venture capital (VC) firms are reportedly in talks to collaborate and share information about unethical founders who take advantage of venture money. According to anonymous sources in the local venture ecosystem, some founders have seen venture money as a private chest and a ticket to a better life, with some building personal houses abroad under the guise of offices. The coalition by VC firms would serve as an extra layer of due diligence, but there are concerns about how easily such a coalition could drift into gatekeeping. Some founders have argued that VC firms on this coalition must realise that they owe the ecosystem transparency.
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