Show Me Your Wallet
The AngelList for Africa is here—and it wants receipts
Welcome to Next Capital, the newsletter that helps you find Africa’s most promising startups—before anyone else does.
Backdrop
The startup funding market is broken in more ways than one.
Founders can’t find investors.
Investors can’t trust founders.
And both parties are tired of wasting time in pitch meetings that lead nowhere.
Part of the problem is noise. The African startup scene is getting crowded, and not everyone raising money should be.
The other problem is trust. Too many investors have backed the wrong founders—on vibes and pitch decks alone—only to get ghosted when things get rough.
Umbrella wants to fix that.
By building a verified marketplace for startup investment, advisory, and exits.
Think of it as AngelList, Republic, and Acquire.com—rebuilt from the ground up for Africa’s messy, fragmented, and high-potential ecosystem.
The problem
Startups need capital. But investors need confidence.
In a market with few structured exits and even fewer verified pipelines, the bar for trust is high. And most investors don’t have the time or resources to run due diligence on every deal in their inbox.
On the other side, early-stage founders can’t afford the lawyers, CFOs, or advisors that help make their startups investor-ready. So even good startups miss out on capital because they can’t speak “VC.”
Worse still, there’s no real infrastructure for secondaries or small exits. So all those “paper unicorns” stay paper forever.
Umbrella’s fix
Umbrella is building a verified pipeline for African startups, where every founder, investor, advisor, and deal gets KYC’ed, documented, and tracked.
Here’s how it works:
Founders create profiles and upload their data rooms.
Umbrella runs due diligence via in-house checks or third-party partners.
Verified startups are matched with aligned investors or advisors based on sector, stage, and preferences.
Investment can be milestone-based, helping protect investors and keep founders accountable.
The marketplace also allows for:
Secondary sales (soon): Founders and investors can exit positions without waiting for a big acquisition.
Advisory services: Vetted professionals offer fractional support—legal, product, marketing, and more.
Startup kits: Discounted software and support from partners.
The secret sauce? Umbrella is strict.
Only startups that complete full verification—including co-founder agreements, cap tables, and due diligence—get listed.
No shortcuts.
The money talk
Umbrella launched publicly less than a year ago.
So far:
292 users on the platform
181 founders
47 advisors
22 investors
28 ecosystem partners
50 startups listed, with many still completing final verification
Revenue from founder subscriptions ($11/month or $150 lifetime), and growing revenue streams from deals, commissions, and advertising
They learned early that $150/month was too steep for founders. So they listened, cut prices, and saw engagement rise.
They’ve also hosted multiple founder events, raised awareness in local ecosystems, and continue to build “in public”—publishing growth numbers quarterly.
The vision
Umbrella isn’t just a deal platform. It’s a long-term bet on trust.
They're building infrastructure for an ecosystem that’s still in its adolescence, where exits are rare, compliance is optional, and capital is still a privilege, not a given.
In the future, they want to offer full cap table management, smart investor matching, and maybe even a “verified by Umbrella” badge that lets you skip due diligence altogether.
Why we’re excited
There are dozens of deal platforms.
But very few force founders to upload co-founder agreements before raising.
Or verify their identity.
Or track investment by milestones.
Umbrella is doing the hard, unsexy work to rebuild trust at the source.
And in a world of pitch deck inflation and fake traction screenshots, that might just be the most important infrastructure in African tech.
The team
Ayoola Ogunyomi(CEO): Product development and brand strategist. Ex. Patricia and Opay.
Edward Bella(CTO): Full-stack engineer and software architect. Ex. PayHippo.
Want to try the platform or refer a founder? UseUmbrella.com
If you’d like to meet the team or would love a more detailed investment memo, shoot me a reply.
And if you’re building something cool we should know about, fill out this form
Till next week! 👋