Hello, and welcome to today's edition of Founders International, where we give you the update on startups and technology from outside of the US.

Yes, I missed yesterday, but for good reason. Valentine's day came first, and my focus was with my wife for the night. So, no hating.

Here's what we have in store for you from the past couple of days:1. A European startup hub raises a €1bn fund for deeptech and climate tech companies2. Luxury e-commerce 🤝 Africa3. Gbenga Sogbaike - Founder of the Day

Estimated read time: 3 minutes and 30 seconds

A European country raises a €1bn fund for deeptech and climate tech companies

Beyond just Silicon Valley, which is typically the place for startups to be, there are many other hubs around the world for those who may not have the luxury or means to get to the west coast of the USA.

London, Barcelona, Tel Aviv, Paris, and many many more. But now, one of the many more just got a leg up on the rest: Germany (mainly Berlin)

The country of Germany just raised a MASSIVE €1bn fund, specifically for deeptech and climate tech companies. If you are working on any type of company within these industries, you now know the place to be.

Areas/topics of focus within those industries are robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing and process automation. Also, in companies with a technology-based business model such as digital health, new energy, smart cities, new materials and selected biotech areas.

This does come right after France announced they are planning to invest €500m into deeptech startups themselves, about 2 weeks ago.

This is now the second time in the last few months that the French took an early lead in the beginning, only to be outdone in the end 😬

The reason this is big, is historically European companies have had to leave Europe to find funding in the growth stages (Series B and beyond), so this is a turning point for companies to be able to stay in their country/continent, and find the funding they need to eventually reach maturity, and possibly find an exit by MnA or going public.

It got bad enough, that founders in the region as a whole wrote a letter to the government seeking more assistance for growth round funding back in November

Now, it seems their asks have been heard, and answered.

Luxury e-commerce 🤝 Africa

If you had to ask my wife if I was perfect, she would unfortunately say no. She would probably say there's a few things I can improve on, and those are - 1) I should get her flowers more often. 2) I don't make the bed in the morning 3) That I have NO sense of fashion.

Well, it's a bummer we're not in Africa because it just got a whole lot easier to find, and buy luxury fashion items. Today's company of the day, is Jendaya.

The luxury goods market in Africa and the Middle East was worth over $35 billion in 2019, with designer apparel and footwear generating more than $7 billion in retail alone. There's even a company called Jumia, consider it the Amazon of Africa, and fashion has held the top spot for the highest selling category on the site for years now.

Jendaya, a London based but Africa focused startup, is looking to break into this huge market, just coming out of stealth announcing a $1.2 million dollar pre-seed round. This app is going to help luxury brands tap into the fashion forward African market, and help consumers worldwide find African fashion brands as well.

Typically, how it has worked for Africans to get luxury brand items, is they would have friends and family in the US and UK buy and ship them the goods. There was no direct way to buy the luxury goods in Africa.

The founders of this company actually came up with the idea for Jendaya after being personal shoppers and doing this for family and friends in Nigeria. Talk about solving your own problems.

The biggest two problems they will face: credibility, and shipping. Credibility will have to be built over the coming years in order to make it big, as many people (myself included) would hesitate to drop thousands of dollars online for a luxury brand item such as something from Gucci, Louis Vitton, etc. 

And secondly is shipping. Shipping is very difficult in African countries, with a lot of times not numbered or easily identified addresses, and low infrastructure for shipping. Jendaya was able to partner with DHL to solve this part of the problem, and begin it's trials into actually shipping the products.

Jendaya also will be going B2B, with them making an editorial and creative agency in development. They have already made $100k plus from this, so this will likely be the money maker to finance the DTC activities of their main business.

Founder of the day

Gbenga Sogabaike

Gbenga has founded a few companies in his time, and now helps out the Founders Institute in Lagos Nigeria.

They just opened up applications for their spring cohort!

"Founder Institute's 6,000+ alumni have raised over $1.75B and are valued at over $30B. We plan to continue this success with the Lagos cohort.

If you're an aspiring & early stage startup founder, click the link to apply"

And that's all for today, if you want to get more follow us @Founders_Intl, or respond to this email. Yes, we respond to all emails, including yours. Try us.

Have an interesting news story, person, company or other sweet topic you want us to cover? Respond to this email with a link, short description, any any other relevant information, and your submission may be featured in a future issue.

What did you think of today's issue?

Respond with one of these emojis and let us know what you thought!

💯 Freaking sick dude🤷‍♂️ Meh, do better next time😑 Bruh, I might unsubscribe after reading that