Digital Nomads: The first-time founders seeking global mobility for a chance at being funded

Victor Daniyan is standing on a stage sweating profusely. Though Morocco is usually humid around this time of the year, the hall is well air conditioned. He briefly locks eyes with one of the stern-faced panel of judges—most of them are experienced founders who  have exited successful startups, and there’s one director of investments at a corporate venture firm present. He barely holds the judge’s gaze for five seconds before he looks away. He has just finished pitching his product, Nearpays, to a room brimming with experience in the business hemisphere. These were men who could take any inexperienced founder from zero to everything. Daniyan anticipated there would be hesitation; he dreaded it. He closed his eyes and waited for judgement. If he went back to Nigeria, he was going to keep building Nearpays like he’d done in the past two years—with pure grit and out of his pocket. But even his cynical side still prayed for one maybe that could turn into a yes in the future. 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Of course, he needed the money. He’d bootstrapped  his startup for two years without any return on his savings. It wasn’t until last year that his venture started generating traction. With this traction, he had jetted off to Plug and Play’s closed-door gathering with investors, hoping to pitch what he thinks can be as big as Visa. Except, sadly, this pitch never happened. Instead, Victor Daniyan, CEO of Nearpays, was stuck at the airport, unable to travel to an event he’d eagerly prepared for. He had the opportunity of a lifetime to attract investor interest in Nearpays. But here he was, sitting at the airport, watching as time went by quickly. Daniyan was unable to travel due to a visa delay, which upended his fortunes that day. This is one of many stories about the systemic travel bottlenecks that plague African founders, especially first-time founders seeking funding. On one hand, they’re dealing with issues that prevent them from accessing funding opportunities. On the other hand, the problems are more… artificially created. Can I trust you? To first-time, early-stage founders in Africa, trust is not a given. It has to be earned—and geography, unfortunately, plays a massive role in whether or not it’s granted. Uzochukwu Mbamalu, CEO of Palremit, a one-year old Nigerian fintech startup which has raised $200,000, experienced this first-hand.  “I travelled to Kenya once,” said Mbamalu. “There was this guy from Manchester who was very interested in knowing what I was building. The moment I mentioned Nigeria, that was the end of the conversation.” Mbamalu now lives and operates from Europe, where he believes proximity, perception, and presentation impact trust-building.  “Trust level increases, especially for people from Nigeria when they travel out. They tend to raise money at that point. The business, especially if you’re starting out, is actually tied to them as the founder.” He explains the logic investors often use: if the founder is in Nigeria, the risk is higher; the founder could disappear, for example. The infrastructure might collapse, so there’s no better way to remain in