Vaya originates, advises and structures venture opportunities across the African continent — from pre-seed to growth, across five high-conviction sectors. When you pitch, you are not just asking for a cheque: you are asking the desk to put its name and network behind your raise. The bar is conviction, and conviction comes from a clear story backed by evidence.
What the desk looks for
- A real problem in a market we understand — battery and critical minerals, energy transition, agri-processing, digital and fintech rails, or logistics.
- Founders who have lived the problem and can execute on the ground, not just describe it on a slide.
- Evidence of traction appropriate to the stage: a working product, early revenue, signed offtake or pilots, or a credible path to them.
- Unit economics that survive contact with reality — a business that gets healthier as it scales, not one that needs ever-cheaper capital.
- A capital ask that matches the milestone it buys. Raise to a clear next inflection, not to a round number.
Package the raise so it travels
An investor sees the deck before they meet you. Lead with the one-liner, the market, and why now. Show the team, the traction, the model, and the ask on a single clear page each. Keep a data room ready — incorporation documents, cap table, financial model, key contracts and any pilots or offtake — so that when interest turns warm you can move in days, not weeks.
Before you open your data room to a prospective investor or adviser, paper the conversation. A one-way NDA lets you share sensitive materials while keeping control of them. It is the standard first document of a raise.
The paper trail of a raise
A Vaya-supported raise usually moves through the same documents in sequence. First, a non-disclosure agreement opens the data room. Then, if you engage the desk to run the process, an advisory and origination mandate sets the scope, the success fee on capital introduced and the tail period. As investors firm up, a term sheet records the headline terms of a priced round; for faster early-stage rounds, a SAFE lets an investor commit now and convert into equity at your next priced round. Each of these is a fillable template in the document engine.
How to actually start
- Submit the venture through the pitch form so the desk can triage it against the sector theses.
- Have your data room ready behind a one-way NDA.
- If you want Vaya to run the raise, agree an advisory and origination mandate up front so incentives are aligned.
- Decide early whether your round is best done as a SAFE or a priced round — the next guide walks through the choice.