Herconomy Founder Shares Difficulties in Raising Funds

By Aduragbemi Omiyale

The founder and chief executive of Herconomy, Ms Ife Durosinmi-Etti, has shared the difficulties she faced when raising funds for her business.

In a chat with CNN recently, the entrepreneur disclosed that it was quite challenging because women in the tech ecosystem struggle with getting the attention of investors, unlike their male counterparts.

“What I’ve noticed in the tech space is that women are over-mentored and underfunded. We need to do more to fund more women and ensure that their businesses actually grow from small businesses to big businesses,” she stated.

Ms Durosinmi-Etti, however, concluded that, “While funding is very difficult for women to get, some women are getting it, and it is opening up. Things are changing.”

The World Bank says all-female start-ups received only 3 per cent of the almost $2 billion of investment going to African tech start-ups from 2013 to 2021.

In 2021, Okra, established by Ms Fara Ashiru Jituboh, raised $3.5 million of venture capital (VC) funding and she described the period as “one of the biggest funding years generally across the board,” noting that almost $6 billion was attracted into technology companies.

Also, in a chat with CNN, Spotify’s Head of Music for sub-Saharan Africa, Ms Phiona Okumu, said the brand was growing alongside its young population.

She acknowledged the musical complexities of the continent, adding that it is important to “know that the world is ready and read indicators like the popularity and growth of different genres from the continent becoming billboard hits in the US, for example.”

“We’ve seen such amazing success from artists like Wizkid, who is now a billboard artist, something that 10 years ago we might have only dreamed of. I think that’s also very much a result of what streaming is doing in the music world as a whole. It’s enabling discovery,” she added.

“A lot of Africa is unbanked and does not use credit cards”. To best cater to its new market, Spotify leveraged a partnership with M-PESA, a mobile payment service which is local to Kenya.

“We are continuing to ensure that we partner with different service providers across the continent to make sure that the lifestyle of the audience that we want to court also makes sense to the product or makes sense with the product,” Ms Okumu stated.

Spotify launched in South Africa in 2018 and in 38 more African countries in 2021.