South African-based fintech company, The Closed Circuit, an integrated business and project incubator in the palm of the hands, is set to launch this Friday, 1 July 2022 with beta and delta testing.
A first of its kind in Africa, measured against the current 480 startup hubs globally (Forbes), The Closed Circuit is inspired by the African ideology, Ubuntu ‘I am because you are’ and the commandment ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, so that entrepreneurial spirits within networks and communities are fostered and nurtured. The Closed Circuit allows anyone to start a business or project sponsored by their social trust networks (family, friends, loved ones, communities, neighbours, societies etc.) or as a collective, and aims to close the fund-raising gap and democratise business and project incubation by leveraging the power of the collective.
This ideology was used in the past to build thriving African communities and societies, in clusters and groups. The beauty about this ideology is that it was holistic – business/work and one’s mental wellbeing were not two separate things, they were one because social bonds and trust were valued highly. We see bits and pieces of it in society today amongst highly communal cultures in the form of:
- Goodwill: (religious expectations and compulsion) – people contributing to a cause, as a collective due to religious expectations like tithes, charitable ventures etc.
- Moral obligations: (e.g. ‘black tax’, paying forward or paying it back).
- Cultural and social expectations: (traditions).
By zooming in on these practices The Closed Circuit has created a technological solution that scales this practice, so people in groups can build together and prosper together.
“We are beyond a fintech company. We are a movement focused on closing the trust deficit gaps amongst people and nurturing social bonds so they can have a ‘shared building, shared prosperity’ experience through business and projects,” shares Ginika Egwuonwu, founder of The Closed Circuit.
Initially built by Decagon, a software training institute that takes the top 0.5% of brilliant young Africans and turns them into software engineers, and have a portfolio of Fortune 500 companies under their belt, and backed by venture building firm Funema who are champions of investing sweat capital in startups focused on the last-mile economy, The Closed Circuit is well positioned to be the next big disruptor on the continent.
On why Funema made a venture building investment into The Closed Circuit their founder David Ogundeko shares: “We believe in working with faithful founders. The word faithful, when read in the context of the parable of the talents actually means to multiply. With limited resources and funding, the founder has built a working MVP and ready to onboard 100 users by Q3 this year.”
He adds: “Think of Kickstarter+WeFunder but with an approach contextualised for the African market. South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Kenya combined boast of over 50m small businesses. Over 90% are inefficient and could leverage The Closed Circuit’s value proposition for success (B2B). Nigeria alone has over 200m people with over 50% youth population. We can imagine 1 in every 100 students using The Closed Circuit to not only raise funds for projects like school fees or books but also access mentorship to achieve that specific goal (B2C).
The Closed Circuit couldn’t have launched at a better time. With inflation and the rising prices of food, petrol and other commodities, people can seek relief with The Closed Circuit app by using the power of the collective, such as bulk buying discounts etc and leverage help which eases individual burdens when things are done collectively.