Investor Profile: Microtraction

Microtraction wants to be "the most accessible and preferred source of pre-seed funding for African tech entrepreneurs." Founded in Lagos in 2017 by Yele Bademosi and Kwamena Afful, the firm wrote some of the first pre-seed cheques on the continent — with standardised terms, year-round open applications, no batches, and no demo days.

Founder and thesis

Yele Bademosi is one of African tech's best-known founder-to-investor stories: he studied medicine at King's College London before dropping out, founded the startup Purple in the UK, ran Starta in Nigeria as GM, then founded Microtraction in 2017. He later directed Binance Labs (2019–2020) and founded Bundle, the social payments and crypto app. The mission: "to accelerate Africa's economic growth by enabling innovation and supporting technology entrepreneurs... to increase the number of venture bankable startups across the continent" — bridging the pre-seed funding gap. The firm is deliberately sector-agnostic but biased toward technical founding teams ("it's really hard & costly to build a tech company without a tech founder," Bademosi has said).

The standard deal

Clarity is the product: since May 2022 the standard first cheque has been $100,000 for 7% equity, plus a $350,000 top-up at the next round, provided Microtraction is no more than 25% of that round. Earlier vintages offered $25,000 for 7% (2020–22) and $65,000 in two stages at launch. The fund targets at least 60 first cheques with around 20 top-ups. Applications are open year-round — founders need not wait for a cohort.

Fund size

In August 2022 Microtraction announced a $15M first close of its second fund, Microtraction Community Limited — backed by more than 30 venture-backed African founders as LPs. The first fund's size was never publicly disclosed, and no final close figure beyond the $15M first close has been publicly stated.

Notable portfolio companies

Portfolio names include Cowrywise, Helicarrier, Bitsika, 54gene, Lemonade Finance, Accounteer, Riby, Thank U Cash, Wallet.ng, Schoolable, Termii, Pivo, Raise and, more recently, Intron Health and Juicyway. As of August 2022 the portfolio stood at 36 companies across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Rwanda, with $100M+ raised in follow-on funding at a combined $760M+ valuation; over 73% of first-fund companies entered global accelerators such as Y Combinator and Google for Startups, and 37% were co-founded by women.

Team and community

Alongside Bademosi, partners include Managing Partner Dayo Koleowo, Chidinma Iwueke (financial operations), and Ife (recruiting). Beyond capital, the firm offers founder support across hiring, fundraising, talent, business strategy, growth, regulatory, PR, and investor introductions — plus the invite-only Microtraction Community (a DAO-style network with social-token incentives, events, and investment access) and the Opentraction newsletter. No specific credit or perk bundles are publicly stated.