After investing in eight start-ups across Egypt, Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya, since its launch a year ago, First Check Africa debuts its #FirstCheckRisingStars list to highlight women who stand out as emerging leaders in Africa’s technology sector. 

Comprised of 10 honourees, the #FirstCheckRisingStars, tracks and celebrates women from all walks of life and career paths whose achievements inspire others to leadership. The list includes: Yewande Akomolafe-Kalu – head of storytelling and branding at Flutterwave; Mitchelle Chibundu – product designer at Wise; Adaora Nwodo – software engineer at Microsoft, and Ada Nduka Oyom – developer relations ecosystem community manager at Google and founder of She Code Africa. 

Reports show that gender disparity in the industry is a worldwide problem, with women compromising 28.8% of the global tech workforce. Though there are several programmes geared towards helping African female founders advance in tech, the gap is still wide as most initiatives tend to focus on training and mentorship rather than raising funds. This is where First Check Africa comes in. The pre-seed and seed-stage fund founded by Eloho Omame and Odunayo Eweniyi, has a capacity to write cheques of $25,000 and above. First Check Africa aims to “advance equity, capital and leadership” for a generation of African women in tech and entrepreneurship by providing easier avenues to raise venture-backed capital and invest in start-ups. 

The female-led angel fund backs start-ups founded or co-founded by African women. When they are not investing “ridiculously early” in women in tech, they create opportunities for mid-career and millennial women to invest in venture-backed start-ups through its investor community.