Stripe’s former growth lead helps African diaspora invest in startups, real estate

Summary

When Joe Kinvi joined Touchtech Payments in 2017 as head of finance, the Irish startup couldn’t afford his full salary. So he negotiated for stock to make up the difference. Eighteen months later, Stripe acquired the company, and that equity converted into Stripe shares, enough to let Kinvi leave his job, bootstrap a side project, and eventually found a startup. That startup, Borderless, is now helping Africans in the diaspora collectively invest in startups and real estate back home. Since launching in beta last year, the U.K.-based platform has processed over $500,000 in transactions. “The diaspora sends billions of dollars in remittances, but very little of it goes into productive assets,” Kinvi said. “We think that there is a world where, if we can bring the right collective to the right type of investment opportunities, it’ll make it a lot easier for them.” Kinvi’s journey to Borderless began in 2020, just as the pandemic hit. He and a group of friends formed Hoaq, an investment club that pooled small checks from local and diasporan angels into African startups. Their first challenge was simply opening a bank account. Financial institutions flagged their activity, and their account with Wise was repeatedly frozen. Other hurdles soon followed: currency mismatches, regulatory requirements, and accreditation rules that made collective investing a legal and logistical headache. To manage the complexity, the group used membership dues to hire a lawyer to handle the paperwork manually. Eventually, Hoaq built light automation into its workflow, an experience that laid the foundation for Borderless. Hoaq has invested in companies such as LemFi, Bamboo and Chowdeck. By 2022, Kinvi had left Stripe, where he had transitioned into a product and growth role and later spent a year at Paystack, another Stripe subsidiary, helping scale financial partnerships across Africa. When he returned to the problem that had formed Hoaq, he built a tool that digitized everything from onbo...