Growth Operator Notes

War Games

Africa deals that already played out, run through the IC Checklist using only what was public at the time. The test is not whether the deal failed. It is whether the instrument would have caught the risk before the money moved.

4
retrospectives run - 3 failures
diagnosed, 1 success validated
No hindsight

Only information public before the round closed. The verdict is frozen before the outcome is read.

The instrument

Africa IC Checklist v3.1. Six dimensions. One red is enough to fail a deal.

The honesty

Every retrospective names what the checklist could not see. Blind spots are published, not buried.

IC Signal: Red Verdict frozen on January 2022 inputs 02
Jan 2022 raiseSep 2023 debtDec 2023 acquisitionLate 2024Mar 2025
Fintech · BNPL · Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Nigeria · July 2026

Lipa Later Raised $15.4M and Spent It Like a Software Startup

A lending company funded the way you fund software. The warning was in a press release three years before administration. Two structural reds on a six-dimension checklist, both from public information.

Funding mismatch surfaced Repeat economics surfaced Collapse timing outside tool
Walk the retrospective → $15.4M raised, gone in 38 months
IC Signal: Red Frozen on Jan 2022 inputs 01
Series CScale-upCash burnMay 2024
E-commerce · Last-mile logistics · Kenya, Uganda · May 2026

Copia Global: What the Africa IC Checklist Would Have Flagged Before the Series C

$120M raised, 50,000 agents, 13 million orders fulfilled, and $20,300 in the bank at filing. The distribution margin problem was visible in the public record before the round closed.

Margin compression surfaced Bridge failure outside tool
Walk the retrospective → $20,300 in cash at filing
IC Signal: Amber → Red Clean at funding, red on re-test 03
Jan 2020 raiseNov 2021 pivotAug 2022 layoffsLate 2022 bailoutSep 2023
Logistics · Freight & fulfillment · Kenya · July 2026

Sendy Raised $20M as a Marketplace. It Died as a Warehouse Company.

The Series B checklist run comes back clean - a genuinely asset-light business, correctly funded. Twenty-two months later the company built a capital-intensive fulfillment operator on the same balance sheet, with no new capital raised for it. The flag was real. It just wasn't at funding.

Capital structure drift surfaced on re-test One-time pre-investment run would have missed it
Walk the retrospective → 22 months from funding to a different business
IC Signal: Green Three real ambers, zero reds 04
Sep 2021 raiseApr 2022 licenseJul 2022 debtJun 2025 debtJul 2026 Burkina
Fintech · Mobile money · WAEMU · July 2026

Wave Raised $200M While Fighting Orange Over Airtime. The Checklist Would Have Said Yes Anyway.

The series' first success case, and it isn't a clean green. Zero reds, but three real ambers - a capital structure not yet self-licensed, VC-subsidized pricing with no disclosed margin, and an active, unresolved regulatory fight with the dominant incumbent at the exact moment the round closed. The checklist says yes. It doesn't pretend the yes was easy.

Three ambers surfaced, none proved fatal Per-transaction margin still undisclosed today
Walk the retrospective → Zero reds - the tool's first validated pass
The Full Ledger
04 Wave Raised $200M While Fighting Orange Over Airtime. The Checklist Would Have Said Yes Anyway. Green Still operating, 20M+ users Jul 2026 03 Sendy Raised $20M as a Marketplace. It Died as a Warehouse Company. Amber → Red Administration, Sep 2023 Jul 2026 02 Lipa Later Raised $15.4M and Spent It Like a Software Startup Red Administration, Mar 2025 Jul 2026 01 Copia Global: What the Africa IC Checklist Would Have Flagged Before the Series C Red Bankruptcy, May 2024 May 2026

The Pipeline

The series mixes failures and successes deliberately. A retrospective set that only shows the instrument catching disasters is marketing. Tracking where it would have been wrong, and saying so, is what makes it useful to someone running live diligence.

Yoco · South Africa · success OPay · Nigeria · mixed