Raise has launched an end-to-end fundraising platform through a beta program to support the African venture capital ecosystem.
Founders can sign up for the beta program at getraise.io and selected companies will be able to use the Raise platform to continue their fundraising. Read more about the beta program here.
Raise is a financial technology company that provides fundraising solutions via a digital platform. Founders and investors can launch a private virtual deal room, run fundraising simulations and issue compliant electronic share and convertible certificates.
These solutions are meant to simplify the fundraising process, making it easier to track and close deals remotely in Africa. The company hosts a cloud-based built to comply with the latest corporate laws for private companies in jurisdictions like Nigeria, Delaware, The Bahamas, Mauritius, Kenya and Nigeria, and boasts a team of 4 full-time lawyers along building products with its software engineers.
Marvin H. Coleby, co-founder, CEO and securities lawyer said: “The impact of COVID-19 on the African VC space was unexpected. It’s going to make it harder to close deals for African founders. At Raise, we’re founders – and we’re here to support founders.
“We’re releasing the public beta to support the ecosystem’s transition to the new norm of remote investing. At Raise, our mission is to bring security, transparency, and simplicity to the African VC space – and really make the fundraising process easier and simpler for everyone.”
Raise was founded in 2018 by co-founders Marvin Coleby (CEO) and Eugene Mutai (CTO) and later launched its alpha in 2019 at the Africa Tech Summit in Kigali.
Raise silently launched its private beta to a waitlist of companies in January 2020. Since January 2020, they are transacting a volume of $20+ million USD and are used by startups and venture capital firms in Africa’s fastest growing countries by amount of investment – Kenya and Nigeria.
Notable partners and customers include Helium Health which recently raised a $10m Series A, Anjarwhalla and Khanna (a four-time African law firm of the year by Chambers 500), Nigerian venture capital firms Microtraction (investments include YC-backed 54 Gene and Wallets.Africa), and Chrysalis Capital (investments include YC-backed Bamboo and Helium Health).
“Raise helps African companies inspire trust with the global tech ecosystem. We’ve seen the data about how it takes African startups 400+ days to raise funding and a lot of the delays come in the due diligence process. With Raise, companies can proactively load all the data investors usually want to see, cap tables, formation documents, metrics, etc, which simply inspires more confidence and simplifies the fundraising process” – Nichole Yembra, Managing Director of Chrysalis Capital.
“We’ve worked with Raise since their inception. The ease, stability, and veracity which their platform brings to startups and mature company’s cap tables, share registers and fundraise processes is unprecedented”, Dominic Rebelo, Senior Partner (Corporate and M&A) at Anjarwalla and Khanna.
The Raise team is led by Marvin H. Coleby (Co-founder and CEO, VC lawyer from Dentons, the world’s largest law firm), Eugene Mutai (Co-Founder and CTO, Google Developer Expert and full-stack engineer), and Tina Nyamache (Chief Growth Officer, led Village Capital’s Africa office and traded securities on the Nairobi Stock Exchange). For a full biography of Raise’s advisors and team, see the media kit.
