A step‑by‑step guide for operators and students who want to enter Africa’s venture fellowships and scout pools – what they involve, how to stand out, and which articles to read first.
You are probably reading this because Twitter threads and demo‑day streams are no longer enough. You want to join the people who help choose the continent’s next breakout founders. The timing is favorable. Africa’s tech scene raised US $3.2 billion across 534 equity and debt deals in 2024, a seven‑percent dip on paper but effectively a stabilizing of capital after 2023’s global pullback. Almost half of that money still arrived at seed or earlier, so funds crave reliable sources of very early insight.
Two program formats dominate the pipeline that feeds those first checks. Scout tracks hand selected operators a fixed allocation – usually US $50 k to 100 k – to deploy in sub‑US $25 k tickets. Personal capital is optional and scouts keep 10 to 20 percent carry. Fellowships invest in your time instead. Over eight to twenty‑two weeks you attend live workshops, shadow diligence calls, and finish with a mock or real portfolio. Dream VC’s 2025 cohort, for example, runs sixteen to twenty‑two weeks and accepts fewer than four percent of applicants.
Why are these on‑ramps multiplying? First, geography. Lagos, Nairobi, and Cape Town sit four time zones apart. A distributed network of trained scouts reaches farther than a single office. Second, talent retention. An early‑stage platform recently launched a year‑long fellowship that pays seasoned operators to stay on the continent while learning to invest. Third, homegrown ownership. TechCrunch called Dream VC “a program that targets would‑be fund managers so Africa can grow its own capital base rather than wait for foreigners to move first.”
Most funnels involve a culture chat, a written memo, then a partner interview or mock investment committee. Acceptance rates hover near three percent, so polish your materials early.
A typical week mixes Monday night term‑sheet classes, a mid‑week deal debate, and Friday office hours with a general partner. If you are on a scout track you will likely need to surface one qualified lead per month. Fellowship tracks often culminate in a simulation where you defend a deal and map out follow‑on reserves.
Dream VC fellows say the calendar feels like “an MBA sprint” and ends with an off‑site retreat that for past classes took place in Zanzibar, Marrakech, or Tunisia. Obuntu Launchpad fellows describe a twelve‑month schedule of sixty‑plus sessions led by partners from Partech, TLcom, and Helios, delivered entirely online so participants can keep their day jobs.
One press note about Dream VC’s 2025 intake highlighted 135 fellows from fifty nationalities and said women made up fifty‑six percent of the class – proof that diversity goals are measurable inside these pipelines.
Ask three questions:
If the answers align, draft a 100‑word bio that lists concrete wins, build a one‑page sector thesis with one proprietary data point, create a simple cap‑table model in Google Sheets, and line up two founder references. Treat the application itself as your first investment memo.
VC review platform Landscape thinks it's come up with the scout programme to rule them all: a "scout-as-a-service" marketplace.
Ada has ~100 “Ada Scouts” and 20 “Ada Angels,” each able to invest up to £50K in underrepresented entrepreneurs – resulting in 30% of Ada’s investments coming via scouts.
Sifted found nine such programmes founded in Europe. They range from a few days to a few weeks, from free to thousands of euros.
Dorm Room Fund, a venture capital operation that launched to invest in student-led startups, has raised a new $10.4 million fund, per SEC filings. The filing marks Dorm Room Fund’s largest fund to date, and its first that appears to include investors beyond First Round Capital, the firm that first launched the student-focused operation in 2012.
It started as First Round Capital’s experiment. After all, founder Josh Kopelman had started his first company, Infonautics, while he was a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Partner Hayley Barna had started Birchbox while still at Harvard Business School.
Sequoia Capital has funneled millions of dollars to scores of well-connected entrepreneurs and academics, who invest and look for ideas.
The article confirms that Spain has a number of scouts working for top Silicon Valley and European funds (Sequoia, Accel, EQT, Index, etc.), though many keep a low profile
Founders are extraordinarily busy, even for their own investors. A decade ago, they might have had relationships with a handful of VC partners as they scaled their businesses and raised additional rounds of capital.
Join the Superscout community!
🌍 Meet other scouts globally.
👀 Get first dibs on new scout programs and VC openings.
✨ Get feedback and investor recommendations for your deal memos.
✌️ Learn and grow together as a community!
