Ebony Bogui-Akinyi is reshaping how startups across Africa and the African diaspora grow and scale.

As the founder and managing partner of Think Forward VC, she invests in and builds companies in health care, fintech, and agriculture, combining capital, mentorship, and hands-on support through a hybrid fund and AI-powered venture studio. In an interview with AFROTECH™, she discussed her approach to venture investing and empowering founders from idea to scale.

Her journey to this point, she said, was shaped by her mother. Bogui-Akinyi grew up in a single-parent household, watching her mother, an immigrant from Kenya, rebuild her life step by step, from working at a gas station and driving a taxi to becoming a nurse practitioner.

“She showed me how to never give up on what you want, to give yourself a better life while also impacting others,” Bogui-Akinyi told AFROTECH™.

That lesson in persistence stayed with her through her education. She began studying medicine at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro but soon shifted toward technology, noticing few Black students in the field. She transferred to North Carolina A&T State University in 2017, earning a Bachelor of Science in information technology in 2021, according to LinkedIn.

“It taught me that my perspective matters,” she said, reflecting on the community of peers who encouraged her to pursue her ideas boldly.

In 2024, she enrolled at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management to pursue an MBA, per LinkedIn, focusing on venture capital, innovation, and building better futures.

“Cornell taught me that my voice needs to be heard, that I can speak up in rooms, and that I don’t need to shrink,” she said.

Bogui-Akinyi told AFROTECH™ that fellowships like HBCUvc, which trains Black students and early-career professionals for careers in investing, and Black Venture Capital Consortium (BVCC), a year-long program placing graduates at venture firms, helped her gain confidence.

“With BVCC, I was like, ‘Hey, I want to create a startup.’ And I did, and I won a pitch competition,” she said. “That’s when I realized this is all it takes. It made me ask: Why aren’t more people who look like me creating businesses? And if they do, why are so many of the businesses I see, like restaurants or smaller businesses, owned by Black men and women? Every step of the way, I kept asking more questions.”

Bogui-Akinyi’s career path, fueled by those questions, led her through consulting at Ernst & Young (EY) and Techstars before she entered the investment industry. She said that it was there that she noticed a consistent challenge: African founders often lacked both capital and mentorship.

“A lot of people come in with a Silicon Valley model — they just give you money and then tell you to go back to the portfolio,” she explained. “But we need to co-build, to be hands-on with founders.”

In 2025, that insight became the foundation for Think Forward VC. According to the firm’s website, 50% of its work focuses on direct investments in early-stage startups, with pre-seed to seed-stage checks ranging from $25,000 to $100,000 (average: $50,000). The firm provides strategic support to help founders reach investor readiness and co-invests with top VCs, angels, and accelerators.

The other half of Think Forward VC’s work happens in its in-house venture studio, which turns validated ideas into scalable startups using AI, local insight, and founder-matching, emphasizing problem-first ideation, rapid MVP development, data-informed market testing, and shared-equity co-founder matching. “We don’t just write checks — we roll up our sleeves and build alongside founders,” the website states.

Through this hybrid approach, Bogui-Akinyi said she aims to accelerate innovation across Africa.

“Execution is a skill that can be taught regardless of what everyone else thinks. You can learn to take risks, to be audacious, and to create systemic change,” she said.

She also hopes to create visibility for African entrepreneurs and mentor the next generation.

“If we don’t own stuff, then who’s going to write our history? This gives youth across Africa — from Angola to Egypt to South Africa — the chance to write their own story,” she said.

By combining funding, operational expertise, mentorship, and AI-powered tools, Think Forward VC works to equip founders with the resources to build scalable, high-impact startups across Africa and the diaspora.