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Examples and Success Stories:
Successful angel investors and their investments:
According to research angel-funded startup companies have historically been less likely to fail than companies that rely on other forms of initial financing.
There are examples globally where angel investors have realized significant capital gains while exiting their capital investment from early stage ventures. Examples include:
Paul Buchheit
Invested in: Y Combinator, FriendFeed
- Paul Buchheit is a partner at Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley-based seed accelerator that has funded more than 550 companies in more than 30 different markets. One of his biggest exits is FriendFeed which sold to Facebook for $47.5m
Jean-François “Jeff” Clavier
Invested in: Mint, Kongregate, Milo, Wildfire, Class Dojo
- Jean-François “Jeff” Clavier has closed more than 150 investments since 2004 and among the successful startups that he has backed are Mint (sold to Intuit for $170m), Kongregate (GameStop), Milo (eBay), Wildfire (Google), and Class Dojo.
David Lee
Invested in: SV Angel, Twitter, Foursquare, Flipboard, Dropbox, Airbnb
- David Lee is managing member at SV Angel, LLC, an angel fund with investments in companies such as Twitter, Foursquare, Flipboard, Dropbox and Airbnb. One of their biggest exit is StumbleUpon which sold to eBay for $75m
Examples of successful angel investments in Africa
- In Africa, countries leading the way in angel investments are South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Egypt and Tanzania. Most of the angel investing in these countries is undertaken in group structures. In East Africa, there have been several key public cases where angels have realized gain from exiting their investment from an early stage venture with many more undisclosed ones. By way of mention , the main ones include:
InstaDeep
Acquired by BioNTech SE
- InstaDeep – in 2023, Tunisia-founded enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) startup InstaDeep has been acquired by Nasdaq-listed German biotech company BioNTech SE in a deal that could eventually be worth GBP 562 million (US$684m) to its shareholders
Paystack
Acquired by Stripe
- Paystack – the Nigerian fintech was acquired by Stripe in 2021 for USD 200 million offering an early exit for the founders and early angel and seed investors.
Wezatele
Acquired by AFB
- Wezatele – in 2015 Wezatele a Kenyan startup focused on supply chain optimization was acquired by AFB a financial services company that provides innovative consumer credit products for USD 1.7million after just about 5yrs in operation.
Mledger
Acquired by Safaricom
- Mledger – In 2014 Safaricom Kenya’s largest telecommunications player made a full acquisition of Mledger an application meant to help users with Mpesa reconciliations for an estimated USD 1 million. The company had been in operation for less than 3 yrs.