Angel investing & co-investment · Founding phase

Africa should own more of the technologies shaping its future.

Jollof Ventures directly invests capital — our own and our co-investors' — in technology-enabled businesses across Africa. We are not raising money from the public; we invest, we don't solicit.

African capital. Global innovation. Shared prosperity.
The opportunity

The market is growing. Access isn't.

Capital exists. Ambition exists. What's missing is a trusted bridge to high-quality private technology opportunities.

$4.1B
African tech funding in 2025
+25% year over year
72%
of funding went to four ecosystems
Kenya, South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria
10%
Francophone share of African tech funding in 2024
Yet Francophone markets accounted for 61% of deal count (not funding) outside the top four — deal flow without capital flow
The opening

A bilingual, relationship-led platform can compete through access, context, and disciplined selection — especially across underrepresented Francophone markets.

Sources: Partech 2025 and 2024 Africa Tech Venture Capital Reports
Our approach

Angel investing first. Everything else, only once we've earned it.

Jollof Ventures combines local African market access, global operating experience, and disciplined investment analysis to back scalable businesses addressing essential needs across the continent. We're building a verified track record before considering any broader investment structures.

TODAY
Angel & co-investment

Direct investing

Investing Jollof or founder capital directly in 2–4 companies, with documented diligence and quarterly reporting.

AS WE GROW
Track record first

Earned, not assumed

Any broader collaboration with other investors would only follow a proven, repeatable process and confirmed legal compliance.

LONG TERM
Evolving deliberately

Institutional-grade, eventually

Our approach may evolve further once our portfolio, controls, and governance are institutional-grade.

Returns and disciplined underwriting come first — not personal relationships.
Where we invest

All of Africa, primarily.

We invest in digital infrastructure and B2B technology, trade and logistics, agrifood value chains, and healthtech — continent-wide.

Primary: All of Africa

Technology-enabled businesses strengthening Africa's essential economic infrastructure, continent-wide.

How we source

Proprietary relationships and hands-on diligence, wherever the opportunity is strongest.

One standard, everywhere

The same underwriting discipline applies regardless of market or geography.

We invest at pre-seed through seed, typically $10,000–$25,000 per company alongside a credible co-investor. We look for founder-market fit, real paying customers, and a market bigger than one country alone. Every investment goes through documented screening, founder diligence, and independent committee review before capital moves.
Team

Founded on two decades between African infrastructure and US business.

AS
Abdoul Samb
Founder, Jollof Ventures

For more than two decades, Abdoul has worked at the intersection of telecommunications, digital infrastructure, and engineering leadership — building and leading teams, guiding infrastructure strategy, and turning complex technology investments into reliable services and sustainable business results. A central part of his leadership has been developing people alongside systems: hiring, coaching, and aligning technical, sales, operational, and executive teams around shared outcomes.

Alongside his telecommunications career, Abdoul has built businesses in Senegal, giving him direct experience with what it actually takes to grow a company in African markets — raising capital, developing talent, building operations and governance, and winning customers. Jollof Ventures brings these threads together: capital, operating experience, technical judgment, and international relationships, applied to help founders build durable companies in digital services, infrastructure, agrifood, trade and logistics, healthcare, and access to essential services.

Born in Senegal and raised in the United States, Abdoul brings a perspective shaped by both markets. His long-term vision is a stronger bridge between African opportunity and global capital and expertise — building companies that generate returns while creating jobs, developing talent, and building lasting local value.

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Mariama Ndong
Finance Manager, Jollof Ventures
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Rassem Tamdji
Senior Advisor, AI and Data Center Infrastructure

Advises Jollof Ventures on artificial intelligence infrastructure, data-center architecture, accelerated computing, cloud platforms, high-performance networking, site reliability, and technical operations, with more than 15 years supporting large-scale, business-critical technology environments with global footprints and continuous availability requirements.

Rassem currently serves as an AI Data Center Engineer and Senior Technical Operations Lead at NVIDIA, where he supports infrastructure solutions powering AI, high-performance computing, cloud, and enterprise workloads — designing end-to-end architectures spanning accelerated compute, GPU systems, storage, networking, power, cooling, rack optimization, system integration, and deployment readiness. His career also includes infrastructure, architecture, reliability, and technical operations roles supporting Oracle's U.S. federal government environment, CommonSpirit Health, Meta and Facebook, Intel, Microsoft, Splunk, PayPal, T-Mobile, and the New York Stock Exchange.

At Jollof Ventures, Rassem supports technical due diligence and helps founders evaluate infrastructure strategy, scalability, performance, energy efficiency, security, availability, vendor dependencies, and operational readiness — helping technology companies translate ambitious product visions into resilient, efficient, and deployable infrastructure.

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Michael Gnankou
Enterprise Architecture and Technology Governance Advisor

Advises Jollof Ventures on enterprise architecture, digital transformation, technology governance, cybersecurity, and enterprise application integration, with extensive experience designing and governing secure, scalable systems across AI, cloud, data, identity, and enterprise software environments. His work includes evaluating third-party AI and SaaS platforms, architecture and privacy risk assessments, and integrating platforms such as ServiceNow, Oracle HCM, AWS, Snowflake, and Denodo. Michael helps Jollof Ventures evaluate technology-driven companies and supports founders as they strengthen their architecture, security, governance, and readiness to serve enterprise customers. He holds a master's degree in Enterprise Architecture and Enterprise Transformation from Pennsylvania State University.

Apply for funding

Tell us about your company.

A short application in English or French — company, team, product, and traction. Submitting it does not constitute an offer, commitment, or promise of financing; we may decline at any stage and will require full verification before any investment.

Abdoul Samb
Founder | Jollof Ventures
Start your application