[Transcript] #22: African Corporate VCs & Softbank - Why African corporates are not investing in tech startups

Transcript for podcast originally recorded on Feb 7, 2021

😉 Hello Afrobility readers and listeners!

Back in February 2021, we discussed the state and potential of African Corporate Venture Capital (CVC).

I love this episode because we discussed a wide variety of companies (Softbank, Naspers / Prosus, MTN, Nedbank, Safaricom, Orange, Stripe, Visa, MasterCard, Tencent & Alibaba to name a few) scanning multiple sectors and regions.

Enjoy & DFTBA!

Olumide Ogunsanwo

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Transcript starts here

[00:00:00] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Welcome to Afrobility, a conversation about African business and technology. Today, we're going to talk about African corporate venture capital using SoftBank as a reference point. We'll talk about SoftBank's early history, transition from an operations company to an investment company by creating the vision fund, and then we'll dive deeper into the current state and future potential of corporate venture capital firms in Africa.

This episode was recorded on February 7th, 2021. Bankole, Makanju, what's up?

[00:00:30] Bankole Makanju: I'm good. You've finally run out of names.

[00:00:33] Olumide Ogunsanwo: That was just your government name. 

[00:00:36] Bankole Makanju: Just my government name on record. It's great. I'm good, man. It's Super Bowl Sunday. 

[00:00:40] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Oh, really? That's today? 

[00:00:42] Bankole Makanju: Olumide does not know anything about sports or watch sports.

[00:00:45] Olumide Ogunsanwo: No, I don't have a clue. It's today. It's the Super Bowl. Oh, wow, okay. That's a big deal. 

[00:00:51] Bankole Makanju: Olumide, I don't want to talk about this. Just move on. 

[00:00:53] Olumide Ogunsanwo: Okay, okay, okay. It's a big deal. Honestly, I didn't even know. Not only did I not know, no one even referenced it in my circle of friends. You need new friends.

Apparently I'm surrounded by nerds. What are we going to be talking about today? 

[00:01:04] Bankole Makanju: Talking about corporate venture capital in Africa. I think SoftBank SoftBank is a good example. But the whole point is why, like, what we're talking about this is, you know, MTN has money, like, you know, obviously like, why do you rob a bank?

Because that's where the money is. It's like, okay, we need investors. Right. Companies have cash. You know, GTBank made, let's call it 500 million in profit at a tax last year. Why aren't they investing more in startups?