Ramani.io is a Tanzania-born, San Francisco-incorporated B2B fintech digitizing the micro-distribution layer of Africa's consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) supply chain. It hands point-of-sale, inventory and procurement software to thousands of micro-distribution centres (MDCs) that move products from brands like Coca-Cola, Diageo and AB InBev to corner shops, then uses the real-time sales and inventory data to underwrite working-capital financing. A Y Combinator alumnus that raised a $32M Series A in 2022 and holds a lending license from the Bank of Tanzania, Ramani is now evolving into a financial marketplace and B2B e-commerce platform connecting banks, brands and resellers.
Beacon Power Services (BPS) is an energy-technology company building data and grid-management software for Africa's power sector. Its AI-enabled platforms - Adora for real-time grid monitoring, CAIMS for utility asset and customer data, and the Xepp consumer app - help electricity distributors cut losses, prevent outages and digitize networks. Founded by aerospace engineer turned investment banker Bimbola Adisa, BPS now serves utilities reaching more than 50 million people across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Zambia and beyond, processing over a billion grid data points a day.
Hassan Al Shouli is a senior communications and strategic business executive at Microsoft's CEMA (Central Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa) President Office, based in the UAE. With nearly two decades of career experience, he has shaped Microsoft's presence across the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and broader MEA region through executive communications, multi-channel campaigns, and leadership engagement. Before Microsoft, he spent years in the fast-moving MENA digital market at dubizzle and analytics consultancies. He holds an MBA from Cass Business School (now Bayes) and a BSc in Electronics, Engineering, and Communications from the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport.
Yassir is the leading super app for French-speaking Africa, bundling ride-hailing, food and grocery delivery, and digital payments into a single platform serving more than eight million users across the Maghreb and beyond. Founded in 2017 by Stanford-trained engineer Noureddine Tayebi and El Mahdi Yettou, the company has raised over $193 million, including a record $150M Series B led by Bond.
Angaza is a San Francisco- and Nairobi-based software company whose pay-as-you-go platform lets last-mile distributors sell solar home systems, water pumps, smartphones and other life-changing products to off-grid consumers on small, mobile-money installments. Its cloud platform powers more than 200 distributors across roughly 50 countries.
Teppei Tsutsui is General Partner and co-founder of GFR Fund, a San Francisco-based early-stage venture capital firm focused on gaming, generative AI, creator economy, and consumer tech. Tokyo-raised and University of Chicago-educated, he co-founded GFR Fund in 2016 after a decade spanning Mitsubishi Corporation, Morgan Stanley M&A, and GREE - where he moved to San Francisco in 2014 to launch their seed investment program. GFR Fund III closed at $53.5M in 2023, and the firm's portfolio of over 100 companies includes three unicorns - VRChat, Animoca Brands, and Sky Mavis - with GFR's earliest and most famous bet being VRChat, invested when the platform had just 1,000 active users.
Josh Tetrick is the co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, Inc., the San Francisco-based food technology company behind JUST Egg (a mung bean-based egg substitute) and GOOD Meat (the world's first commercially sold cultivated chicken). Starting with $37,000 of personal capital in 2011, he has raised over $456 million to build a company that simultaneously cracked the plant-based egg market and won the world's first regulatory approval for lab-grown meat in Singapore in 2020. A former Fulbright Scholar, UN initiative leader, and Cornell-educated lawyer turned food disruptor, Tetrick has made it his life's work to prove that removing animals from the food system doesn't mean sacrificing flavor or scale.