Maya Horgan Famodu is the Founder and Partner at Ingressive Capital, a venture fund investing in early-stage African tech. She is also the founder of Ingressive for Good, a nonprofit focused on tech training and job placement and Ingressive Advisory, a firm guiding global firms entering African markets. A Kauffman Fellow, World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and 2x Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Maya is committed to expanding access to capital, infrastructure and opportunity across overlooked markets.
Too often, capital waits for perfection. A polished pitch. Flawless metrics. Familiar credentials. But in my experience, the most transformational companies rarely start that way. They start scrappy. They start local. They start when someone says: “This problem matters and I’m going to fix it.”
That’s what I built Ingressive Capital; to fund not perfection, but potential. And not just funding, but full-spectrum access to the tools, training and trust needed to build at scale.
I founded Ingressive Capital because I saw the same problem repeat itself: incredible African founders being overlooked by global investors who hadn’t learned how to read local signals. The funding gap wasn’t just about money — it was about mindset. So we started early, writing checks at pre-seed and seed stage, when belief matters most. Early means 75 percent of our Fund I first checks were $5M post-money valuation or below and 60 percent were $2.5M or below.
“We’re not here to follow outdated models. We’re building a new playbook — one rooted in deep context, intentional capital and relentless execution”
Today, Ingressive Capital has raised two funds and invested in over 50 early-stage companies across Africa. We were early backers of category-defining startups like Paystack, Bamboo, Carry1st, Remedial Health, SeamlessHR, Tizeti and Complete Farmer. But beyond individual investments, what we’re really doing is building infrastructure — systems that shift how innovation is discovered, supported and scaled across underserved markets.
That means three things:
1. Backing talent before it’s obvious. We don’t wait for perfect metrics. We invest in momentum, clarity and founder-market fit. It’s how we’ve consistently found winners early and why we continue to build long-term partnerships with global co-investors who trust our lens.
2. Designing for real access. We launched Ingressive for Good, a nonprofit that has trained hundreds of thousands of young Africans in tech, provided scholarships and placed graduates in real jobs. Because funding startups is great, but building the talent pipelines that power them? That’s how you shift entire economies.
3. Bridging global capital with local context. Through Ingressive Advisory, we’ve helped more than 50 global firms — including Y Combinator, 500 Startups, USAID, GitHub, Figma and Techstars — successfully access, enter or expand in Sub-Saharan Africa. Some launched new ventures. Others made their first investments on the continent through our work.
All of this has grown from a personal conviction — that the most underestimated people often build the most extraordinary things. I’ve seen it in venture, I’ve seen it in youth training and I’ve seen it at every border where innovation meets friction.
As an African woman leading a fund across global markets, I’ve walked into rooms where I didn’t match the default image of a “decision-maker.” But those experiences sharpened my clarity. They taught me how to move with intention and how to build things that don’t rely on permission.
This year, I was honored to be named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, joining a group of leaders shaping the future across business, government and civil society. I’m also a Kauffman Fellow, a 2x Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and a member of both Young Leaders Council (YLC) through Milken Institute. These recognitions reflect not just the journey but the growing importance of African innovation in global conversations.
We’re not here to follow outdated models. We’re building a new playbook — one rooted in deep context, intentional capital and relentless execution.
Because brilliance is everywhere. But access? That’s what we’re here to fix.
