What angel investors should look for in African digital businesses

Angel money in African tech is not scarce; discernment is. The decks rhyme — huge TAM slides, logos that were “in conversation,” a product screenshot with lorem ipsum. The businesses that survive are duller on paper and sharper in operations.

Green lights

• Money in the bank from customers, not only grants or pilots
• A channel that does not depend on one influencer or one enterprise gatekeeper
• Founders who can explain unit economics without memorising buzzwords
• Product choices that respect bad connectivity and real payment behaviour
• A credible story for the next cheque — who writes it and after which milestones

Walk away signals

• Revenue “about to close” for three quarters
• Metrics with no date range or data source
• Operations that halt when the CEO travels
• Cap tables or partner agreements nobody wants to show early

Seven Hundred Percent sits on the operator side: we run Italewa, build for partner ventures and take consulting mandates on due diligence. If you want exposure to businesses being built with that lens, request the investor deck — we prefer conversations with people who ask hard questions.