Caban Group

Venture Capital and Mid-market corporate advisory firm with with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

#SpaceX is not just a rocket story.
It's a cadence story.

Every launch created data, trust, learning, cost insight and capital confidence.

That is the real lesson for founders.
Build the proof loop competitors can see but cannot easily copy.

New ScaleSignals piece:
How SpaceX Built the Cadence No Rival Could Buy
@elonmusk

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

Six months ago, the only question a founder asked me was how much equity
to sell. Now the question is which capital to use at all.

I didn't just feel that shift. The market called it in real time.

THE BEFORE (late 2025):

@PeterJ_Walker (Carta) laid out the dilution ladder — seed founders selling ~19.5% a round. The whole game was how much equity to give.

@deedydas (Menlo) flagged the crack underneath: VC fundraising down ~75% from the 2022 peak. The equity tap was already tightening.

THE AFTER (now):

@andrewziperski said, "finance is now a first-class citizen in Silicon Valley."

Shaun (@shaunabe): borrowing against revenue, assets, offtakes — private
credit thriving where equity used to be the default.

WHAT I SEE FROM THE SEAT (the part the headlines miss):

The clean priced round didn't get more competitive. It concentrated — AI
took the lion's share of equity dollars, and everyone else quietly rebuilt
the stack around debt, revenue-based and blended structures.

And the part almost no one's saying: venture debt itself is now rotating
away from software toward hardware and physical, because lenders fear AI
eating the recurring revenue they underwrite against.

So I mapped it. December vs June, side by side — what rose, what fell, and
what it means for how you structure your next raise.

https://t.co/PFf97vfTVE

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

An investor taking your meeting tells you almost nothing. From the GP seat, a first meeting is nearly free — intel, optionality, a favour to a referrer. They'll sit down even when the answer was already no.
Engagement isn't intent. Here's how to tell the difference 👇
https://t.co/iDO3gDjpKJ

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

When growth slows, founders blame the market.
It's usually not the market. It's clarity decay — the slow blur of who you serve, as growth itself dissolves the focus that drove it.
Run the one-sentence test on your team. The result tells you which problem you actually have.
https://t.co/foA38s1fve

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

Most founders run a single capital route — VC equity — regardless of whether the business is structurally suited to it.

The Capital Route Map published today maps seven routes against business type, stage, and proof requirements.

Vantage members.

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

A UK fintech founder building in Kenya had twenty-six UK seed VCs on her list.

Two would have written cheques. Twenty-four had geography mandates that excluded her.

The right list was not longer.

It was three routes — VC, DFI, strategic — rather than one.

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

Most founders do not need more investor names.
They need a better capital route.
ScaleSignals helps founders understand which funders fit, what evidence they need, and how to approach them without wasting months.
Start here: https://t.co/K7qEgOlq19

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

Most companies do not fail because people are unintelligent.

They fail because consequential decisions are made without structure, evidence, or memory.

At 50 employees this is survivable.

At 500 it becomes existential.

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

South Africa leads equity funding in the Big 4 with strong PE activity in 2025–2026 South Africa has reclaimed leadership in equity investment among Africa’s Big 4 markets, with sustained PE and venture deal flow in financial services, industrials, and infrastructure.

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

THE LIQUIDITY GAP

Cambridge Capital - How Secondary Markets Are Repricing Private Capital

Research · Research Paper · Volume 1, No. 2 · April 2026
https://t.co/LB625g84a3

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

The Human Lever: Why Safety Drives Speed

https://t.co/9ExjJWyRBV

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

The Liquidity Arbitrage: Deterministic Rails and the Death of the Float https://t.co/QpM1fvu6rg

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

Governance as a First-Order Moat: How Specialist Emerging Managers Approach Capital Deployment in Fintech and Healthcare

https://t.co/B7Jea4Zaww

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

Governance as a First-Order Moat: Capital Deployment in Fintech and Healthcare

https://t.co/xGOC5bwYUZ

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

When Growth Forces You to Become Someone New

https://t.co/DkScgGeYQC

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

Most companies don’t slow because of people or markets.
They slow because their operating systems quietly stop fitting their scale.
https://t.co/igVuy2Sblj

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

Healthcare delivery scale across Africa still breaks at last-mile compliance—new agent rules just amplified it. Build systems that absorb policy shifts, not fight them. #HealthTechAfrica Next fracture point?

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

Fintech in Africa: CBDCs are coming, but agent networks still rule last-mile. Nigeria's new rules cap agents to one principal—consolidation ahead? Founders, hedge your bets on compliance tech. #FinTech #AfricaInvest What's your play

[Ben Botes @ben_botes]

Frontier dry powder at $12B+ for Africa, but LPs hedging FX hard on late entries. Valuations spike—then the quiet control clauses kick in during bridges. Founders: Price the downside early. Seen it flip outcomes. #FrontierPE What's your hedge?

[Caban Group @cabanplc]

Regulatory Sandboxes Fintech: How They Shape Fintech Scale in 2026.

Regulatory sandboxes in fintech are often described as innovation enablers, a place where fintech companies can experiment without the full weight of regulation.

https://t.co/wv0lejoIVu