Spark 2.0

In 2013, at the inception of Spark, I wrote the below manifesto.
We are not a fund and we are not an incubator; we are a company that builds companies. We focus on Lagos, Nigeria as the gateway to Africa. We focus on well defined and scalable revenue models. We are a collection of internet people. We are Spark.
Shortly thereafter, we deployed $2m in a bunch of companies. We lost some. We won some. The value of our current portfolio is definitely worth more than the capital invested so for that I think we are definitely in a good place moving forward. But the terrain was significantly more challenging than I ever imagined. More challenging than any of the individual entrepreneurs thought possible. Myself included. The lack of follow-on funding would have killed product-only led businesses. The challenges around monetization would have destroyed the dreams of weaker men or women. But those who were able to bridge through the valley of death are building real companies based on real ...