Ona Aliakai

Uncovering and pursuing investment opportunities in Africa through research and venture capital | 💰 Research and DD Lead at @velocityhq_ | ✍🏾 Sati

[Jasiel Martin-Odoom @Jasielinvests]

African founders are, rightfully, obsessed with building for scale.

But the best prove they can retain a single customer for 12 months.

You can't scale what doesn't stick.

I see this constantly: founders spending 80% of their energy on acquisition and 20% on retention. Then they wonder why their churn is destroying unit economics.

The companies that win in this market flip that ratio.

One founder I work with in Nairobi rebuilt their entire onboarding flow after realizing 60% of new users dropped off in the first month. They didn't go chase more customers. They fixed the experience for the ones they already had.

Six months later, retention doubled. Revenue followed.

Retention is a pre-growth requirement.

If you're losing customers faster than you're gaining them, adding more marketing budget won't save you. It'll just speed up how fast you burn cash.

Fix retention first. Then scale.

[Marge Ntambi @margentambi]

Most founders have a problem they've experienced personally.

Few know if that problem is actually a business.

@iamprincenathan lost containers of goods in 2022. Instead of moving on, he went to Alaba International Market and talked to 1,000+ traders.

Those conversations became @usebrydge — now moving transactions across 12 African trade corridors, backed by @MastercardFdn.

Join us tomorrow as Nathan breaks down how to validate problems when surveys don't work

March 31, 6PM GMT+1

Register: https://t.co/W4K3zASe4Q

[Marge Ntambi @margentambi]

After a decade in corporate finance at Procter & Gamble, Accenture, and most recently as a Vice President at JPMorganChase, I’m excited to share that I’m now in venture capital full time as Managing Partner at @Velocityhq_.

This move is deeply meaningful to me.

Over the past several years, I’ve been working in venture across Africa’s tech ecosystem supporting capital allocators as they deploy and helping founders navigate the fundraising journey. This work has never felt peripheral to me. It has long felt like the clearest expression of the work I’m meant to do.

Since I was 18, I’ve wanted to play a role in building a more prosperous future for Africa. Today, I’m grateful to be fully committed to that path.

I’m incredibly proud of what we’re building at @Velocityhq_. Through the platform, we’ve invested in 75 Africa-focused companies, and we’re continuing to build the kind of firm and ecosystem support that exceptional founders deserve.

If you’re building from Africa for the world, I’d love to connect.

With gratitude and joy,
Marge

[Ona Aliakai @OnaAliakai]

@margentambi I appreciate you too!

[Marge Ntambi @margentambi]

Co-founder appreciation post ✨

What I love about working with @OnaAliakai is that she takes our work from great to exceptional. She has a real eye for detail.

I initiate.
She closes.

We balance each other.

Without one, you can’t have the other. ✨

[Stephen Deng @mrstephendeng]

I should do this more often, but I want to pen a quick note about Kelvin @tushgeek, one of the founders of @getBumpa in Nigeria.

We invested in Bumpa quite early when Kelvin and Teejay were still finalizing their MVP. We partly made the bet on our research that digital commerce would mature over the years in Nigeria. But frankly, we made the bet because these guys believed that Bumpa would be inevitable, and helped us believe it too. Bumpa went on to raise $4m led by @Base10Partners.

But as always, the road is filled with challenges: the ZIRP period burst, the Naira devalued by 3x, the okada ban disrupted logistics, as many of you know, Teejay was in a fatal road collision last year.

There are times when no amount of strategy or planning matters; times when you simply must endure and keep going. Last year certainly had those moments for Bumpa. But they persisted and Kelvin led the team with an unworldly amount of resilience.

Despite everything, in 2025 the business grew revs by 3x, crossed 2 million orders, meaningfully diversified their revenues, and shipped Bumpa POS; all with hyper efficient burn.

2026 is set to be even bigger. Bumpa looks inevitable indeed.

Sometimes people ask me (as an outsider) why I invest in African tech. My answer is always the founders I have the privilege to work with. It's an answer that I'm sure most people just accept as some cliche response.

Well, they should meet @getBumpa and Kelvin.

[Marge Ntambi @margentambi]

My team @Velocityhq_ is looking to bring on a Due Diligence Fellow to work directly with me and @OnaAliakai, our Research and Due Diligence Lead.

The ideal candidate:
- Is a Master's student
- Is interested in Africa tech
- Enjoys market research and risk analysis
- Is curious, coachable, and ready to learn

Apply ↓

https://t.co/I7klB9GL48

[Codie Sanchez @Codie_Sanchez]

If you’re struggling right now in any way, skip the life hacks for a minute.

Go to church this Sunday.

Even if you don’t normally go. Even if you’re “spiritual not religious.” Even if you have PTSD from the religious boredom of church as a kid. Just go sit in the back row and be still for an hour.

Almost everything in your life right now is optimized for production or consumption. Slack, spreadsheets, TikTok, email, sales calls. All output and input. Almost nothing is sacred, quiet, or unmonetized.

Church is one of the last places left that isn’t trying to sell you something or steal your attention. It’s an hour built around the idea that you are more than your revenue, or your value. It's one of the few places where the only goal is to confess your flaws, let them go and have some faith.

It's a place that will welcome everyone, even and maybe especially if you hate yourself right now.

Sit, stand, sing, or just listen. Let someone read words that have outlived every empire and every market cycle.

Let your brain remember: money is a tool, not a god. You are not the sole author of your story.

You’ll walk back out into the same world, same problems, same bank account, but it will feel a little less loud and a little less about you. That’s insanely useful if you’re carrying heavy stuff right now.

Tomorrow, you can go back to your problems.
Today, give yourself permission to just be a human.

If things are brutal right now, consider this your permission slip: Close the laptop. Go to church. Let God be bigger than your to‑do list for one hour.

[Ona Aliakai @OnaAliakai]

@yewiedewie You made the mistake of getting the 'a' (budget version) in the 8 series 😅 I did too.

[Femi Aluko @LordBinary_]

50k with 4 hours to go...

I am really curious to see what the final numbers will be by the end of today!

WE DID IT! 🚀

[Velocity Digital @Velocityhq_]

Let’s talk about Fintechs.

Fintechs didn’t appear overnight in Africa.

To understand why it leads venture outcomes today, you have to look at the financial systems that existed long before apps 1/12

[Alex Hormozi @AlexHormozi]

When selling to businesses, never worry about your price tag. Businesses aren’t price sensitive, they’re ROI sensitive. Focus on the return and the price & profit will take care of itself.

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Patrick Collison on the importance of waiting a really long time to hire people

Everybody tells you “work really hard to hire the best people.” But as Patrick explains, that’s not helpful because everyone knows they should do that. As he puts it:

“The question is to what length should you go and what does that actually mean in practice? And in practice, it means being okay waiting a really long time to hire people.”

It took Stripe six months to hire their first two people, and six more months to hire another 3-4 people. He can think of five people at Stripe who took 3+ years to hire.

“If you think about the smartest people you know, if you want to get them to work on your thing, chances are they already have pretty good paths ahead of them… You have to be way more persistent and be okay with it taking way longer than any sane or reasonable person would think it should take.”

There’s an important compounding effect here — hiring just one great person will make it marginally easier to get the next great person. Patrick argues you should also view every person you hire as bringing along another 50 people just like them if your company is successful:

“Even if they don’t literally hire 50 people, they will be so influential in determining the selection of those 50 people.”

Video source: @GreylockVC (2015)

[Velocity Digital @Velocityhq_]

There are two types of African founders: Those who've learned from @peaceitimi, and those who should.

On Tuesday August 05, 2025 at 6pm, the architect behind @theFCshow_ reveals how to weaponize content for growth.

Click the link below to register.
https://t.co/BRxLZ8TH6J

[David Hundeyin @DavidHundeyin]

Remitly lets you send money to many African countries using your European or American payment card. But if you try to send to the same African countries using an African card, it tells you "no" and gives you no reason why.

That same African card can be used to make payments everywhere in the world, so it's not a capital control issue. For example, my Pop card and my Oyster card are connected to my Ghanaian Ecobank card, and I've never had a problem with payments.

I've been to 3 continents with this Ecobank card and the only time it becomes useless in this entire world is when I want to use it to send money to another African country. Then all of a sudden "This card is not enabled for this merchant." But when I try the same payment with my American card, voila! No problem.

Again, these are all dollar-denominated transactions regardless, so there's no question of exchange rate risk or compliance or slippage. There is no reason for this to be the case - someone has consciously decided to prevent African-to-African financial interaction on Remitly.

Essentially Remitly (and pretty much every other major "cross-border remittance" app gives Europeans and Yanks economic access to Africa and specifically locks out Africans. Money is only allowed to flow in one dimension.

[Marge Ntambi @margentambi]

Just 6 out of 50+ African countries drive the continent’s investment landscape today: 🇳🇬, 🇪🇬, 🇰🇪, 🇿🇦, 🇲🇦, 🇨🇮. ( @eajene, @AfridigestHQ). But another is quietly stepping up.

Uganda 🇺🇬

Over the last 15 years, Uganda has produced:

📲 Beyonic (2011): Enabled SMEs and NGOs to manage mobile payments across 5 markets before being acquired by MFS Africa in 2020.

🛵 @Tugende1 (2012) and @asaakmobile (2016): Cumulatively raised $89M+ to provide asset finance for motorcycles, smartphones, and more. In 2023, Asaak made an unprecedented move into Latin America by acquiring Mexico’s FlexClub.

🛵 @SafeBoda (2014): Popularised motorcycle-hailing before giants like Uber caught on.

💳 @numidatech (YC W22) (2015): Built a lending platform for small businesses and became the first Ugandan startup accepted into Y Combinator, the world’s largest accelerator.

🚌 Ugabus (2016): Ran a digital ticketing platform for intercity travel, aggregating 70% of Uganda’s bus operators before being acquired by Treepz in 2021.

@eversendapp (2018): Pioneered stablecoin-based neobanking and now boasts 1.2M+ registered users.

And the next wave is ripe.
Supported by strong GDP growth (6.1%), a stable currency, and a growing number of local high-net-worth individuals investing in startups.

[Ona Aliakai @OnaAliakai]

@victor_okado @NKaliisa @hivecolab, Kampala.
If you'd like to attend, register before tickets run out: https://t.co/zXGznGMl2i

[Ona Aliakai @OnaAliakai]

@RaymondJak @NKaliisa If you're a startup founder, apply by 20 August: https://t.co/XOYkljMbob

If you'd like to attend, register before tickets run out: https://t.co/zXGznGMl2i

[Ona Aliakai @OnaAliakai]

@JobBasiimwa @NKaliisa Yes, up to 20 August. Apply here: https://t.co/XOYkljMJdJ

[Nabuuma Shamim @NKaliisa]

I’ll be judging at the Startup World Cup Uganda Regional Finale as 10 startups pitch for a spot at the Grand Finale in Silicon Valley and a shot at a $1M prize.
It’s the world’s biggest pitch competition, run by Pegasus Tech Ventures (backers of Airbnb & OpenAI).

Come through👇🏾