GetEquity at Five: The First Year Where It All Began to Building Africa’s Private Investment Platform 

Every company has a beginning. Ours started with a simple question:

Why should access to private investments and alternative investment opportunities be limited to only a few?

As we mark five years of building, this is the story of how it began and how it evolved into one of Africa’s emerging infrastructure layers for alternative investments and wealth creation.

In 2020, as the world slowed down during the COVID-19 pandemic, that question became impossible to ignore. Across Africa, founders with promising businesses struggled to raise private capital, while everyday people who wanted to invest in private companies and high-growth opportunities had little or no access to investment channels traditionally reserved for institutional investors and well-connected angel networks.

What if that could change?

That idea became the foundation of GetEquity.

Our founders came together with different experiences but a shared belief that technology could make private investing and alternative investments more accessible, transparent, and inclusive. What began as conversations around capital markets, technology, and financial inclusion soon evolved into a mission: build the infrastructure that would allow more people to participate in wealth creation through private markets.

The vision was simple.

A founder raising capital shouldn’t be limited to a small circle of investors.
An everyday investor shouldn’t need extraordinary wealth or exclusive networks to own a piece of a promising company.

GetEquity set out to bridge that gap.

From day one, we knew trust would be everything. Private investments depend on confidence, so every company listed on the platform went through a structured review process before being introduced to investors. Building credibility wasn’t just important, it became the product itself for our investment platform.

In July 2021, GetEquity officially launched as a digital investment platform enabling access to private investments in Africa.

The response exceeded every expectation.

Within the first month, more than 1,200 verified users joined the platform, validating what we had believed from the start: there was real demand for a simpler, more accessible way to invest in private companies.

Soon after came our first investment opportunity.

When Fluidcoins launched its fundraising campaign on GetEquity, the round reached its $50,000 target in under an hour. It wasn’t just a successful raise, it proved that founders and investors were ready for a new model of startup investing in Africa.

That momentum continued throughout the year.

Companies like Herconomy, TalentQL, AltSchool, Famasi, Pade, and TradeLenda successfully raised capital through the platform, attracting investors from both their existing communities and entirely new audiences. More importantly, it demonstrated that people were willing to back businesses they believed in when barriers to private capital markets were removed.

By the end of our first year, GetEquity had grown from an ambitious idea into a platform facilitating millions of dollars in investment opportunities for African startups and private companies.

More importantly, we had validated our belief that access to private capital, alternative investments, and startup investing could be opened to more people through technology.

We had no idea then that the years ahead would challenge almost every assumption we had made.

But the foundation had been laid.

The first year proved one thing:The future of private investing in Africa could look very different from the past.

FAQs

1. What are private investments?

Private investments are investments in companies not listed on public exchanges, including startup investing and private capital opportunities.

2. Why does startup investing matter?

Startup investing supports early-stage companies and gives access to high-growth private market opportunities.

3. What’s the difference between public and private investments?

Public investments trade on exchanges, while private investments are direct placements in private capital markets.