Nigerian Studio Builds AI Startups Before VCs Arrive

David Lanre Messan saw a problem across Africa's startup scene: brilliant ideas everywhere, but nowhere near enough support to turn them into real businesses. So in 2020, he launched FirstFounders, a venture studio that embeds with founders from their first idea all the way through to execution.

The approach tackles a gap that's cost many African startups their future. In early 2025 alone, six startups shut down, often because they raised money without the operational backbone to use it wisely.

FirstFounders works differently. The studio starts with founders at the idea stage, spending 24 to 36 months providing talent, technical expertise, and strategic support before significant capital enters the picture. Small checks test concepts, then around $120,000 helps bring products to market, and only after that do larger investments of $500,000 or more support scaling.

The model is rare in Africa. Research firm Briter found just 50 venture studios operating across the continent, with Nigeria leading at 11 studios. FirstFounders has deployed about $1 million so far, focusing increasingly on artificial intelligence.

Five of the studio's seven portfolio companies now center on AI, including PocketLawyers for legal professionals, PayAfta for payments, and KorinAI for music generation. Messan sees AI not as a trend but as infrastructure for African markets, using local data and context to solve real problems.

The studio's philosophy is "build fast and kill fast." Ideas that don't perform get phased out quickly, conserving resources for founders who demonstrate execution capacity. Messan looks for discipline, accountability, and operational rigor above all else.

The Ripple Effect

FirstFounders aims to democratize entrepreneurship across Nigeria. The studio plans to help 1,000 entrepreneurs launch businesses and create over one million jobs in the next decade. While Messan works to raise a $7.5 million fund in the U.S., he's also developing a program to train other venture studio operators and publishing a playbook to share best practices.

The venture studio model remains underdeveloped across Africa, but FirstFounders is proving that patient capital combined with hands-on support can build investment-ready companies. By the time traditional VCs arrive, these startups have already solved the hardest problems: proving their ideas work and building the operational discipline to scale.

That foundation could reshape how African entrepreneurs access not just funding, but the expertise that turns ideas into lasting companies.