We’re super happy to finally announce that we joined 500 Startups’ latest batch to power the next phase of Raise’s growth 🎉

Best of all, we used our own platform to close the deal with 500 Startups when they joined our cap table as an investor. More on that later in an upcoming post 😉

For now, we wanted to say thank you - thank our customers, partners and community. Raise is a result of your product feedback and our shared belief in a world where equity is fun and accessible to every African employee, founder and investor. 

We’re learning a lot about building a better startup with 500, and so excited to translate those learnings to the community and new products for you ❤️

What does this mean for you?

Raise is building a platform that helps African teams grow and build financial independence with their equity. We’re also an African team, so we’re always learning with you and always improving the platform and our operations to serve you better.

At 500 we’re learning a lot. Since joining 500, we’re growing the number of companies going live on Raise by 60% every month and helping more African startups, employees and investors reach their goals. Most of all, we’re learning how to build a focused startup and team.

We’d like to share those learnings with you! That’s because we used the Raise platform to close the deal with their team, and immediately found new products and opportunities we’d like to share with you if you’re applying to 500, TechStars, YC or any investment group. We’ll share more soon 🚀

In the meantime, we keep building together ⚡️

Background on 500

First off, what is 500 Startups? 500 Startups is one of the world’s best startup accelerators. 500 Startups has invested in more than 2,500 companies, with incredible companies in their portfolio globally, like Udemy, Canva, GitLab and IronClad.

500 Startups' growing African portfolio is at $129m and growing, with companies like Pariti, SmileID, Chipper Cash, ThankUCash. 

About Raise

Raise is an all-in-one platform for investors, startups, employees and law firms to manage equity, automate legal compliance and close investment deals for African startups. Together with 500 Startups, we’ve been building up our community, sales processes and strategies to become Africa’s equity & cap table platform.