What do you do when you notice a problem?

Hello,

This time last year, we were gearing up for the official launch of Borderless. We felt a little anxious, excited as we tested the platform multiple times to make sure we were really ready to launch. Borderless was born from a recurring problem I noticed as a diaspora angel investor who has backed over 100 startups. From launching an infrastructure with collective management and investment tools for collective managers and diaspora angel investors 11 months ago to now having 2700+ users and 20 investment collectives on the platform, there’s been lots of conversations in between. Conversations that have helped us improve the features on the platform, conversations that have been truly encouraging and more importantly, conversations that have been eye opening.

We realized from speaking to customers that the infrastructure alone is not what we need to solve the problem of how diaspora capital can be deployed into empowering Africa, there’s also the knowledge gap, where most diaspora investors don’t know how to start investing. So, we partnered with African Angel Academy to provide a course that gives investors the opportunity to learn how angel investing in Africa really works. You can access the course here

Conversations are one of our favorite things to do at Borderless, asides from speaking to customers daily, we also have sessions where we learn about what they’re doing and give them the opportunity to share with the rest of the ecosystem.

On Thursday, 11th June at 6PM (WAT), we’re hosting a session with one of the collective managers on Borderless. Titi Akinsanmi is building Sista Collective, the first female-only diaspora investment collective on Borderless. She's not talking about women empowerment alone. She's actually building a space where Black women invest together in Africa, both as investors and as founders who get backed.

She has spent over two decades at the intersection of technology, public policy and governance, including a decade at Google as Global Lead for Generative AI Policy, a Berkman Klein Fellowship at Harvard, board commitments across Canada and Nigeria, and a seat on the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council. And now she's channelling all of that into something deeply personal because she saw a gap that needed filling. According to a report by Techpoint Africa, Africa's VC funding surged 1,597% from 2015 to 2023, yet female founders got just 2.3% in 2024. Sista Collective exists to change both sides of that.

In this conversation I will sit with Titi to talk through her journey from AI policy at Google to building Sista Collective, how she thinks about wealth and community, why she believes women need to be on both sides of the investment table, what inspired Sista Collective and who the collective is for.

Titi is exactly the kind of person you want to hear think out loud. She is someone who has operated at the highest levels of global tech and policy, and is now building something deeply personal. This conversation will be worth your Thursday evening.

Best,

Joe Kinvi