Microtraction is a Nigerian early-stage venture capital firm focused on pre-seed and seed investments across Africa. Founded around 2017, the firm targets technology startups at their earliest stages, typically writing small checks in the $25,000–$100,000 range to help founders validate ideas before larger rounds. The fund operates from Lagos and has built a reputation as one of the first institutional checks available to African founders, particularly those building in fintech, payments, and developer infrastructure.
The firm's investment thesis centers on Africa's structural gap in early-stage capital. Most regional VCs in West Africa historically entered at Series A or later, leaving a wide opening at the pre-seed stage. Microtraction positioned itself to fill that gap, offering not just capital but operational support and introductions to follow-on investors. Public information about total assets under management is limited – the firm has not disclosed fund size publicly.
Notable investments
- Paystack – Microtraction's most cited investment. The Nigerian payments company was acquired by Stripe in 2020 for a reported $200 million, marking one of the largest African tech exits at that time and validating the firm's early-stage strategy.
- Mono – Open banking infrastructure startup connecting African apps to bank accounts via APIs. Mono raised follow-on rounds from larger investors after early backing.
- Brass – Nigerian business banking platform targeting SMEs with current accounts and cash flow tools.
- Vendease – B2B food procurement platform for African restaurants and hospitality businesses.
Public information about the full portfolio beyond these names is limited. The firm does not maintain a comprehensive public portfolio page, and many early-stage investments go unannounced.
Team
Yele Bademosi was the founding managing partner and the public face of Microtraction through its early years. Bademosi previously worked at Binance as Director of Binance Labs Africa before departing to co-found Bundle Africa, a crypto and payments app, and later Nestcoin, a Web3 consumer company. His departure shifted Microtraction's day-to-day leadership, though public information about the current managing team is limited. The firm has operated with a small core team consistent with its lean fund structure.
Recent activity
Detailed information about Microtraction's investment activity in 2024–2025 is not widely reported in public sources. The firm has maintained a lower public profile compared to larger pan-African funds such as TLcom Capital or Partech Africa. It is unclear whether a follow-on fund has been raised since the initial vehicle. Founders who have received Microtraction capital describe it primarily as a conviction-based pre-seed check accompanied by introductions to the broader Lagos startup ecosystem.
Microtraction's long-term value case rests largely on the Paystack outcome, which demonstrated that early African fintech bets can produce meaningful exits. Whether the portfolio companies that followed will generate comparable returns remains to be seen – most are still private and at growth stages. The firm's model of small, early checks across a concentrated set of startups means outcomes will depend heavily on a small number of breakout companies. For investors watching African fintech and infrastructure, Microtraction remains a reference point for pre-seed dealflow in Nigeria, though its next chapter depends on a second fund and the maturation of its current portfolio.