Being Delusional With Toro Orero

It’s fair to say that the Nigerian-born Toro Orero is a live wire that’s all the way lit. He serves as Managing Partner at DraperDarkFlow— a Silicon Valley VC Fund backed by the illustrious Tim Draper, who’s investment portfolio at DFJ features everything from Tesla and Solarcity to Skype and Twitter.

DraperDarkFlow is dedicated to investing in African startups run by “delusional” founders intent on changing the world. Toro also curates SpeedUPAfrica, which is one of the continent’s leading startup bootcamps.

In this conversation, Toro talks about how being underestimated is his superpower, what he and Tim Draper look for in startups they hope to invest in, and dishes on the pros and cons of running an Africa-focussed VC firm that’s headquartered in Silicon Valley.

 

African Spirit, American Spin

The USA celebrates its Independence this week, and in honour of the fact that our biggest audience outside of Africa is based in the USA, we’ve given this week’s African Tech Round-up episode a decidedly American spin.

Playing guest-host in this instalment is very good friend of the show, aka “The American Homie”, Trevor Wolfe— Co-founder and CEO of Delvv.io.

Trevor is fresh off a plane from Europe and the States where he’s successfully closed a round of funding for his crowdsourced research startup. In addition to factoring in on the week’s headlines, Trevor shares some interesting insights on what it takes to launch and operate a tech startup on the continent, while maintaining a global outlook. But that’s not all, folks…

This week’s show also features two US-based personalities who are extremely active on Africa’s tech scene— namely, Maya Horgan Famodu, Founder and CEO of Ingressive, and Toro Orero, Co-founder and Managing Partner, at DraperDarkFlow.

Listen in to hear Maya share some of what she’s observed while leading high profile investor tours to Africa, and explaining what operating in Silicon Valley is like on the day-to-day.

Then tune in to listen to Toro share what he and Tim Draper look for in startups they hope to invest in, as well as dish on the pros and cons of running an Africa-focussed VC firm that’s headquartered in Silicon Valley.

First published on AfricanTechRoundup.com.