Meet The Drapers Season 6 Episode 6: Africa

Welcome to Meet the Drapers, the world's largest global pitch competition. This season, Silicon Valley venture capitalist Tim Draper travels to 6 continents and 10 countries to find the next game-changing company.

We are officially in the game now.

The future of investing in Africa.

It's go time.

Introducing Bonvi.

The business is huge.

It blew up.

Carefully selected entrepreneurs from each region pitch Tim Draper and his VIP guest judges.

It's five cents. It's five cents. Did you feel an energy there? I feel energy all the time. Mystery luck.

They all have a mission.

They're gonna have a lot of leverage.

Tell me why you're different.

Oh.

The winners from each region travel to Silicon Valley for a chance to win $1 million.

They are ruthless.

I don't even try.

This is very depressing. Let's see what we got here.

Which region has the best entrepreneur? We've built Denmark's first flying car.

The blockchain is built for trust.

Meet the Drapers!

Find out on season 6 of Meet the Drapers.

We are getting entrepreneurs from all over the world.

Hi, I'm Sonia Kamra, co-founder of Boopas, building the digital infrastructure for long-distance transport in Africa.

My name is Boom III Jr., and I'm the CEO and co-founder of Daba Finance. We are building the future of investing in Africa.

I'm Tinashe Ruzane, the CEO and co-founder of FlexClub.

We're really excited to make vehicles more accessible What would it mean to you if you won $1 million on Meet the Drapers?

Of course, the money is helpful in furthering our mission and vision, but I think primarily for me it's the validation. Validation that we're doing something exciting, that, you know, there are folks out there that are part of our tribe and believe in, in our mission and purpose.

I think getting a validation from a very accomplished venture capitalist like Tim Would be great for Boopas and would give us the validation that we need that we are building a real business.

From what I know of Tim is he really believes in democratization of investing. Leading up to the conversation with him, I feel a lot of excitement, and also I hope that he sees the same vision and potential that we see in democratizing investing in and out of the African continent.

Hey, welcome to Meet the Drapers. This is our 6th season. Can you believe it? We are getting entrepreneurs from all over the world. With me today are 3 amazing judges. We have Bill Draper, one of the first Silicon Valley venture capitalists. We have Polly Draper, my sister. She is an actor, director, producer, writer. This is such an exciting show because we have here with us Cardinal Turkson, who is the first cardinal out of Ghana, Chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences here in the Vatican, and he was the head of the Dicastery for Human Development for the Catholic Church. As you know, we always adopt our guest judges to become Drapers, so welcome Cardinal Turkson Draper. Hey Dad, the first cardinal in the family!

That's right.

It is called Meet the Drapers. What do you think you're going to be looking for today?

I would expect that those who come on the show are people who are motivated to want to make a change. Make life better, make people live more dignified lives. It kind of helps people change their orbit of existence. If they lived on a lower orbit, they have to move on to a higher orbit, which is more in consonance with their dignity and their personalities and all.

And the Catholic Church is going through a lot of changes. Are you thinking maybe by learning from these entrepreneurs you might sort of spark some interesting changes in the Catholic Church?

Changes have been happening on several different levels, in different directions, on different trajectories and all. But one of the things that I think we need to do at this point in the Church is to rethink how we finance our mission. The Church always has a mission, whether it's the Vatican, it's the local churches and all, they all have a mission. A mission sometimes does require resources and financing, and it's probably time to move from donation and grant-based mission activities to more probably substantial business, you know, initiative, business-directed, you know, basis for financing. And it's in that regard that probably, you know, we can learn something from what is happening here.

Terrific.

Great.

Well, let's bring on that first entrepreneur. But before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

My co-founder Vaikuf and I, both of us grew up in small towns in India and Kenya respectively, but transportation played a huge role for us to access opportunities. We were frustrated by how transportation was broken and so hard to buy a ticket if you want to travel from one city to another. So it started off from personal frustration. Growing up in a small town in India, starting a business is More common than getting a job, so I always knew I wanted to do something of my own. Tell me about another milestone or success that you've had that just made you so excited. Could you could you rephrase that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another success story. When we were in school, we participated in a student business competition called the Hult Prize. We got the funding. We were the global winners in 2016, and that's how we started the company. The energy is great. I'm very interested to know what Tim thinks about my business and what advice does he have for us. We are building a real business and doing something that can become a unicorn.

All right, let's hear from our next entrepreneur. This is Sonia from BooPass. Sonia, give us your pitch.

I'm seeing this person in real life, like Tim Draper in real life. So it was like pretty surreal. I'm excited to show you how BooPass is building the digital infrastructure for long-distance transport in Africa. Every day, more than 30 million people in Africa travel from one city to another, spending over $40 billion every year on ground transportation. However, the problem is that the domestic travel and transport market in Africa is hyper-fragmented, undigitized, and broken. On one hand, transport operators still use pen and paper to do their ticketing. That causes cash leakages, poor business data, and a bad customer experience. And on the other hand, travelers are not able to book their tickets on their phone. They waste time and money to buy a single ticket. There's no method to compare different options, and they can't pay via cashless methods. Our solution is a digital full-stack marketplace where we are first digitizing the operations of the transport companies by giving them a bus management system that is connected to a point-of-sale solution. We set up their operations such as their routes, their schedules, their buses on our system and give their agents our point of sale that transacts 100% of their sales. On the B2C side, we then become a travel aggregator for the end user. So for the bus operator, we reduce cash leakages and give them transparency. And for the end user, we are giving them more options. They can search, compare, and book and pay via cashless methods. We take a commission per transaction. And it works. We have sold over 7 million tickets, processed over $68 million worth of GMV. We are live in Kenya and Uganda, and we reached breakeven last year, and we are profitable. And we are just getting started. We want to open up plug-and-play opportunities for asset financing, embedded insurance, and even providing a network of parcel or cargo via the bus operators. We are backed by investors such as Google, Founders Factory Africa, and the Hult Prize, and we have a team of 21 rockstar staff. We would love to have the Drapers come on board as we transform transportation industry in Africa.

So who designed the product?

If—

I mean, you maybe on the big picture, but do you have programmers or what? How'd you do it?

So I built the first MVP and then we hired programmers.

Oh, are you a coder?

Yes, yes, I'm a quarter, yeah.

That's terrific. Are there any examples of companies in other parts of the world that have grown really big by selling to buses, trains, planes? Is there a model for you?

Now that we are in Europe, Flixbus is a huge company that is valued over $6 billion now. They are in Europe and the US, and they bought out Greyhound last year. So they are a pretty huge example. In emerging markets, There's a company called Redbus in India, which was sold to Naspers for $200 million back in 2015. And right now they're valued over $1 billion. Then there are other players such as Busbud and Bookaway in Israel and Canada. The questions I got from Tim showed how, how much of a seasoned investor he is. He really understood the business. He got the vision and he was asking the right questions.

And you sell to the bus company?

Yes.

So our first customer is the bus company. We digitize them, and then we enable their end users to book their tickets.

And they tend to be private or government-run?

In Kenya and Uganda, they have mostly been private, although we are also working with Kenya Railways for their flagship project in Nairobi and Mombasa to do their ticketing.

And then you have access to the end user through your app, I guess?

Yes.

Can you sell the end user something else?

Yes, so we can provide embedded insurance. We can provide first and last mile booking. So let's say you want to book your Taxi from your home to the bus station. We can help them book hotels if they're traveling for work or pleasure. There's different ways we can add ancillary services.

What is your sales volume?

So for the past 3 months, we are transacting $3 million worth of GMV, and our average net revenue is $52,000 USD.

$52,000 per month?

Per month, yes.

And are you making money on that?

Yes, we are profitable. And our gross margin per ticket is up to 75%.

Are you the CEO?

Both my co-founder and I are co-CEOs.

Have you worked together before?

We started Boopas right out of school. So this is kind of like my first job.

That's great.

Our age worked against us for some of, you know, stakeholders to take us seriously. But I think right now I feel like I've grown so much.

Have you come up against a problem that you— where you disagreed, and how did you solve that problem?

The way we balance each other is that I am more of a big, big picture thinker and he's more of a very detailed person. So we come up against problems where I want to move really fast while he's the one who gives a more balanced solution. We then work through our different options, and we also have a board of advisors who we can go to if we hit any.

Well, terrific. This is really exciting. Sonia, thanks for being on Meet the Drapers.

All right, thank you so much. He's like, okay, these can— this can be a billion-dollar company, but can this be a trillion-dollar company? And we truly think that the opportunity we have here can make Goopas a trillion-dollar company that, you know, changes how people move.

Coming up on Meet the Drapers. I wouldn't ever want to put all my eggs into one basket. Welcome back to Meet the Drapers. So, what did everybody think of BooPass? I thought she was good and she, uh, is solving a difficult problem.

Yeah, I loved her. And it looks like her CEO was a transportation consultant at the World Bank for 2 years focusing on African American and Latin American markets. So it sounds like he's equally talented. Their company sounded like it would be incredibly necessary and helpful in solving that problem.

I mean, talk about something based in Africa trying to transform the situation and lives in Africa. That's to be commended. Several African countries don't have public transportation system. It's just private companies with series of buses which they run, but nothing that you can call public transportation system as we have here in Italy or even the US. So what she's trying to do, bringing them all together, I think it's a good initiative.

Do you think it's possible? Do you think it's too ambitious?

No, I think it's possible because I have a similar venture. I've seen somebody else do the same thing with digital instruments who's enabled these public buses to have an iPhone or iPad or something, you know, before them. that enables them to connect with their stations and customers and all of that. So I think this is an innovation of a sector that needs a lot of transformation, as you said, in Africa.

Do you think Uber replaces this?

No. Okay. Uber may have a different— because Uber, you call for it and it comes.

Right.

Okay.

I see. And these are just going and you just get on when you can.

Now, this, this, this is dealing with an existing situation of countries or cultures that just depend on individuals moving to transform people.

I'm impressed that she's, she's actually profitable.

It seems like each mode of transportation in each different community is going to be specific and different. I wonder how it is managing to make money.

All right, let's move on to our next entrepreneur. But before we do, I want you to go to meetthedrapers.com And vote, and then play the game. It's really fun, and I think you'll really have fun with it. We have big prizes. You might end up on set with us. Who knows? You might end up being a judge on the show. Now let's bring on the next entrepreneur. But before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes.

Oh, sir, we're starting.

Yeah, go ahead.

I'm very excited to share our story, our story with the world. The story of Africa, the narrative around investing in Africa is rapidly changing. Throughout our journey of building Daba, we've realized that we had to fight against the narrative. A lot of people do not understand the opportunity that resides on the African continent. A lot of people have heard the poor narrative, and we are changing that story.

Story.

We have to change the perception, and that is something that has been a challenge, is still a challenge, but we are facing up to and slowly making some progress. Africa is the last frontier. It is one of the biggest untapped economic opportunities of a lifetime, and we are creating the tool, the means for everybody, you watching, to actually tap into that opportunity. We are building the future of investing in Africa.

All right, let's hear from our next entrepreneur.

I'm used to speaking on stage. I'm used to pitching and talking about the company. So there was no pressure there, but just the setup was a little bit different.

This is Bom from Daba. Bom, go ahead.

I'm Boom and I'm the CEO.

Boom!

Blow us away.

Thank you. I'm Boom, and I'm the CEO and co-founder of Daba. And at Daba, we're powering the future of investing in Africa. Africa represents one of the largest economic opportunities of our lifetime. Quite honestly, it's the last frontier market. Today, there is $1.5 trillion of untapped capital market opportunity that is completely off-grid due to the lack of information, the poor narrative, and the lack of investment infrastructure for the continent. How do we unlock that opportunity? Our solution is to build Africa's investing operating system. Leveraging Web2 and Web3, we are looking to build the full-stack investment infrastructure for the African continent, allowing everybody to invest in and out of the African capital markets. How we make money is by charging commissions on transactions and assets under management, as well as earning interest on assets under custody and deposited on the platform, and a premium subscription on investment intelligence and additional investment features through our application. We have about $5 million of asset under management inbound interest to invest through Daba, 4,000 people on our waitlist, 250 users actively using the app for the past 3 weeks and growing 30% week over week. We have secured $1 billion worth of A+ graded investment opportunity across Francophone West Africa, and we are soon to receive our investment advisory license to pretty much build portfolios for people looking to invest across the African capital markets. And our mission is to power the next generation of business in Africa by transforming the way that the world invests, trades, and spends on the African continent. And we'd like to invite you to join us on that mission.

Terrific. So you've got 4,000 people on your waitlist.

Correct.

And that's a waitlist because you're not properly regulated yet.

Right.

So, and we weren't live yet. So we launched 3 weeks ago on the App Store. So our consumer application is now available and we are now slowly onboarding people from that waitlist onto our application.

Once they're on, are they allowed to trade or do you have to wait for some regulatory authority to allow you to be a banker?

I think he understood very rapidly how, like, the opportunity we're going after. But unfortunately, It's not easy to describe how everything fits together in 3 minutes. So for accredited people and select unaccredited people, they can trade today. And once we get our license by the end of this month, we will be able to bring on more people, which is why we're also letting people in slowly off the waitlist.

Where are you hoping to get a license from? Is it from a government of what country, for example?

Yes, so in we are registered in the U.S. and we're getting the license from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission that allows us to be an investment advisor. Now the way our model works is that in the U.S. we are attracting capital that wants to go into Africa, and in Africa we're partnering with banks and brokers on the ground that are already licensed there. And to that fact, we have two top-tier banks and brokers that we're. Partnered with that are giving us access to 9 African capital markets today from the point of launch. And they're registered there, so they allow us to trade their assets back on the different African countries that they have jurisdiction in.

Are you hoping that the diaspora from Africa who go to the US are going to invest back in Africa and that's going to encourage Africans to start Investing in Africans somewhat.

So the African diaspora today across the U.S. is already investing back home. From the fifty billion that they remit every year, five billion is already known to go towards an investment opportunity. Unfortunately, they do not necessarily invest in what in the best assets available. Typically, it's through friends and family. There is no real investment intelligence oftentimes that is associated to where they allocate their capital. So for them, we're a much better tool for them to get access to better yielding opportunities.

The investments that you're allowing these people to make or encouraging them to make, what are they? What would I be investing in if I wanted to invest in Africa?

Yes, so today live on the platform, we are focused on the venture asset class. Venture deals, so private placements into tech companies, as well as venture funds. So for an investor that wanted to have a self-directed approach, they can pick their own private companies. If they wanted to have a managed fund approach, they can invest in VC funds that are focused on Africa for those funds to do the stock picking. Through our partnership with one of the top-tier African banks, we're actually getting exclusive access to a few IPOs that will be coming on before the end of the year.

Do you have any training part of this? Because I know I'm a venture capital investor, I wouldn't ever want to put all my eggs into one basket. I would want to have a diversification strategy, and I think that would probably behoove you too, because any investor who goes on your platform and loses money is never going to be with you again.

Yes, it is a big undertaking, but big ideas change the world. So we have built what is called a percentage fit. When we onboard a new user, we ask them 10 questions. That allows them to build an investor profile. We understand their risk tolerance, risk preference, and risk need. So with that, we pretty much constitute a recommendation as to what their portfolio should look like based on the assets that we make available on the platform. In addition to that, through our partners on the ground, these banks and these brokers, they have entire investment intelligence teams that they're very happy to give us that intelligence for free because we're bringing liquidity to your market. So not only are we building the intelligence algorithmically, but we're also bringing the recommendations from our local partners on the ground to help investors make the best decisions for themselves.

Well, terrific.

Boom.

Good job. Thank you very much for coming on Meet the Drapers.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Great.

Overall, I believe the pitch went well. Hopefully the crystal ball, it lacks Daba as the winner.

Coming up on Meet the Drapers. Why can't you break even now?

You can't caught me off guard.

Welcome back to Meet the Drapers. Well, what did everybody think of Daba?

No, I think I think it's a very courageous move and initiative knowing. About the volatile situation of financial market operations in Africa, interference of governments sometimes in banking systems, the rate of inflation skyrocketing. I suppose if he thinks he's making profit, then he's doing well. Then he has to deal with all of these challenges, and if he's been able to find solutions to them, then I commend him for that. But otherwise, the financial business is not the easiest What he's trying to do is extremely ambitious.

I can, I can visualize it in the transportation, but in this kind of investment thing, it's so abstract and difficult with all the specifics of the different communities in Africa, I think.

Yeah, I hope he makes it and makes it big, but this is highly regulated. In every country, and he's going to have to go through it with every single, every single country he works with. I think he's probably right to start with the US, get a registered investment advisory credential, and then allow all those investors to invest in Africa. And then hopefully that will spur other investment in Africa. But it is a big undertaking. But, you know, we like that. We like big undertakings. So we've got to move on to the next entrepreneur. And remember that you can go hear more about entrepreneurship, venture capital, whatever, if you go to @TimDraper on Twitter. Also, be sure to vote. So with that, let's bring on our next entrepreneur. But before we do, let's see what's going on behind the scenes. Are we working the eyebrows?

I, I'm doing it whether it's—

I am doing it too. You, you do it anyway, Dad. Yeah, yeah, you can't help it, Dad.

I've taken inspiration from a lot of different folks along the way. I was raised by a single mom, and so she worked incredibly hard, you know, was very focused, diligent, disciplined, work ethic, all of those Traits and characteristics I picked up from observing her. She was also very resolute about this idea that you can only improve if you learn and if you commit to truly learning and getting better. And I've taken that with me throughout my journey, even before I, I went down on this entrepreneurial path. I think she's just happy to see me fulfilling a passion that I've had for a very long time. Suffice to say, I'm even more delusional than I was now than before I started this journey. I guess that's That's the entrepreneur's curse. You see a version of the world that no one else sees, and you'll do everything you can to try bring that version of the world into reality. And you hope that along the way, you know, you'll find the people that align with your tribe, that want to be a part of your tribe, a part of your community, to make that reality true. You know, hope that, you know, through this process we can find more allies, expand our tribe that want to see us succeed.

So let's hear from our final entrepreneur. Tanashe, tell us about FlexClub.

In this format, we only have so much time, so didn't necessarily have the ability to kind of create a long story arc. It was a lot tougher kind of dealing with that internal conflict. After 4 years leading car rental partnerships at Uber across Europe, Middle East, and Africa, I became increasingly aware of how challenging it is for car rental companies to make cars available to Uber drivers on a long-term basis, what we now call a subscription, for them to earn a living. Because of legacy payment and collection infrastructure, these companies struggle to serve Uber drivers, small businesses, and in many cases consumers in countries like South Africa, where I'm from. We decided to build new recurring payment and collection infrastructure that makes it easy for car rental and leasing companies to make their services more accessible to customers like those I mentioned. Today, we're incredibly proud to support leading car rental brands like Avis and Europcar, and even manufacturers like Bajaj and Italika. Leveraging our infrastructure, car rental companies can make it possible for their customers to easily create an account online where we verify the identity of the customer, we confirm the customer's ability to afford that car rental, and we even allow them to collect a multitude of payment methods including the ability to pay directly from their Uber earnings, from a credit card, a debit card, or a bank transfer. We're now excited to be scaling that platform where we now have 25,000 accounts that have been created on our platform, collecting over $7 million in transactions each year, earning $1 million in revenue. That means our revenue is up almost 20 times since January last year. We're fortunate now to have a world-class team. hailing from leading technology businesses, including being backed by some of the leading technology investors like Kindred Ventures in San Francisco, who were early investors in Uber, Postmates, Coinbase, and even Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress. We're really excited to power hundreds of millions of dollars of transactions to make vehicles more accessible to more people in emerging markets. And we hope that there's an opportunity to work with you in some shape or form.

So you simulate a credit card somehow, and so these unbanked people can go ahead and rent a car. That seems very niche-y. It seems very narrow. Is there a bigger vision here? Is there something that grabs you?

Sure, you could call 5 million people niche. The key was communicating the broader appeal of our mission. You know, how do we democratize trust? Yeah, ultimately it's about the idea that it's enabling recurring payments to be processed, and they're not necessarily all unbanked. Many of our customers are banked, but they may not, A, either possess a credit card, or B, possess the high deposits required to lease a vehicle from a traditional leasing company.

So recurring, meaning the same price each month?

Correct. So you could subscribe for a car, you could subscribe for a motorcycle, you could subscribe for a truck. But ultimately, if you're outside of that net of either having high deposits or a credit card, you're left out in the cold with no options but to turn to predatory services.

So Bitcoin's promise is to bank the unbanked, and a lot of people are using it. How is that going to affect your business? I mean, if all those people are somehow banked or bankable, and the rental car companies start accepting Bitcoin, doesn't that put you out of business?

No, in fact, that actually augments our offering. We're payment method agnostic. So, for the car rental company, they abstract the complexity of determining what payment methods are integrated, how we actually collect, how we do our underwriting. For them, they want to focus on managing the assets that they rent out. So we could easily integrate more payment methods. In fact, in some markets we're actually looking at scanning QR codes at a grocery store and paying over the counter. So that is a very exciting evolution that we're very eager to explore.

Is this a problem outside of South Africa, or I mean, is it just a narrow problem?

This problem is pervasive across emerging markets. So while in countries like the United States it's common for someone to hold a credit card— 7 out of 10 Americans have a credit card, spending more than $4 trillion on their credit card. But in countries like South Africa and across Latin America, it's 1 in 10. And ultimately, this is about unlocking access to vehicles or assets where ordinarily there aren't financial services products to make those assets accessible. And so we're excited to scale this across Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia, and beyond.

So what would the extra capital for which you're here— what would that enable you to do?

The extra capital would enable us to scale our team. So right now we have 40 people on our team, a significant proportion of which is focused on building the technology.

Scale our team sort of scares a venture capitalist going into a bear market. What you're thinking there?

I think I just went with a knee-jerk response. I was still thinking that the appropriate narrative to sell is one that's just optimizing for growth. Might have created the interpretation that we're tone deaf. It's not an aggressive scaling. I think the point at which, at which we are, we already have significant momentum with some of these leading brands. So this is actually a plateauing of costs where our revenues will continue to scale. So it's not a perpetual scaling of our team. Our view is that over the next 12 months, we can actually get closer to break-even and drive profitability by processing more recurring transactions.

Why can't you break-even now?

As much as I was deeply familiar with that line of questioning from our existing investors, I wasn't even considering factoring it in in in the context of the show. It kind of caught me off guard, essentially. A big part of that is the deep investment we've made in building the technology to where it is. So the scale of our team right now means that our revenues haven't caught up to that operating cost that we have in the business. But we have grown that revenue 20 times since January last year and are optimistic that we'll continue to do so over the coming months.

But if you've grown it 20 times, I am sure you should have been breaking even by now.

This idea of an early-stage business pursuing breakeven is a newer feature of the early-stage ecosystem, where prior, for the decade that preceded that, it was all about growth. How quickly are you growing? We were cut from that cloth. We made that investment quite deep right up front, also being mindful of where our revenue base got dropped down to during COVID So from a $5,000 a month revenue base to now earning over $80,000 We're really excited to continue to scale that.

Have you seen the turnaround since COVID has become less of a problem?

Absolutely. In fact, there's been a greater affinity for access to vehicles versus ownership. So more and more customers are coming to our platform looking for more flexible means to access these vehicles and access these assets.

Well, Tinashe, thank you so much for coming and being on Meet the Drapers. I appreciate what you're doing, and I'm sure you're going to help a lot of people with it.

Thank you.

Look, right now I think the benefit that we bring is that we are a stronger, tested team, battle-tested, that has learned a lot and appreciates, you know, a lot more about how building businesses works. I'm really optimistic that the audience will recognize that in us and that we have a lot to contribute. There's a lot more that we can do to leave a mark on the world, but We need the support of more investors, and hopefully the folks watching this show will be part of our tribe.

Coming up on Meet the Drapers. The crystal ball makes all the final decisions. Welcome back to Meet the Drapers. So, Polly, what did you think of Flex Club?

It sounds like he's addressing a huge problem, that's for certain. Some of the same problems that other people have talked about in a certain way— transportation in these various countries. The fact that it's not an issue in any of the more developed countries probably blinds us to the fact that it's such an issue in where he is right now, in South Africa and Mexico. I liked him very much. I thought that it was It's a problem that needed solving, and I thought that he was a good person to solve it.

I don't know if he really knows how to manage it for a profit. I think that's— that to me is a problem.

I was impressed by his innovative cut and skills and the fact that he's trying to respond to something that has been called for for a long time by world leaders, especially the United Nations. and that is the facilitation of trade or business links between Africa and Latin America. I think fulfills or responds to this desire that has been expressed several times. Southern part of the world encourage to find ways of trading and doing business among themselves. So in that sense, I find this initiative very, you know, encouraging.

And I thought his saying he's going to take the money and scale his team is a little tone deaf to the market today. We have a bear market. It's a very difficult time. And he's unprofitable, as Dad mentioned, and he's going to be even more unprofitable by scaling his team before he really gets the product market fit working again. But I think he does feel like the market is coming back after COVID, and maybe he's just more optimistic I sort of felt like it was nichey, but it does solve a serious problem about allowing people who are unbanked to go rent a car and drive an Uber and, you know, make a living. So yeah, I think it's going to be good for the economy. With that, let's bring on the entrepreneurs and see what the crystal ball has in store for them. Well, what did all of you think? Is it going to be Boo Pass? Is it going to be Daba? Or is it going to be Flex Club? It's going to all come down to this crystal ball, and this crystal ball is super powered today because we're here with Cardinal Turkson, and we've got all sorts of power flying around this crystal ball.

Well, I wish all of you You will have the support and everything that you need to make your business thrive and the next step that you want to take.

These are really good entrepreneurs. You all should be heavily congratulated and supported. Boopass, first of all, great job presenting. I'm not sure how big it can get. I don't know whether this grows into a trillion-dollar business. I was excited about the idea of getting all of these people investing. It's so important. And that extra energy you've got, I think, might be enough to get you through all the regulatory hurdles that any financial company is going to have. But you're going to have it in spades because you're going to have it from all those different countries in Africa. And the U.S. It's going to be a real struggle. And then Flex Club, I think in my mind it started out as a small problem, and now it's grown to be a bigger one. Understanding that somebody who wants to drive for Uber can't rent a car, and that keeps them from building their economy. The big red flag for me. Is that you are burning a lot of money and you are going to scale our team, which is possibly burning even more money. Let's go to the crystal ball because I'm a little torn and these 3 have sort of come up with a unanimous decision, but I'm not so sure. And the crystal ball sometimes just goes way off. And what's really great about Our show is three of our finalists are usually chosen by us, the judges in the crystal ball, and three of our finalists are chosen by them, the viewers. That's the excitement. The viewers make sure you vote. But now we got to go to the crystal ball because the crystal ball makes all the final decisions. So crystal ball, will it be boo pass? Will it be Daba or will it be Flex Club? Huma numa shloni bloni boni bwa. It's Boopass! Congratulations, Boopass! You're going on to the semifinals at Meet the Drapers. Thank you all for participating.

I think it's great to get recognized by the Drapers, to see that Boopass is not only, you know, a great business but also doing its part to create an impact.

By voting Daba, you're voting for Africa's future. You are voting for a prosperous African future, and that would truly be to contribute to the transformation of Africa.

The idea of Flesh Club will return in some shape or form. We did our best. We took a big swing. The journey of building Flesh Club Definitely led me to the insights that we're now leaning on to build the new venture. And yeah, I'm excited to build this new venture. So hopefully get voted back in and everyone can see what this, what this is. What does our 2.0 journey look like?

It's great to have you on our show. And this was our Africa show. Thank you, Cardinal Turkson Draper. See you next week on The Drapers! Meet the Drapers! Meet the Drapers! Heroes!

Heroes!

Who can shake a bird? We're plumping heroes!

Heroes!

On Meet the Drapers! Meet the Drapers! Heroes! Heroes! Heroes! Who can shake a bird? That's what we do on Meet the Drapers!