This story appears in the November 2025 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
Whether you’re building outside Silicon Valley or just working on an idea that’s unconventional, there’s something about your story that makes you an outsider. George Rzepecki says that for investors like him, that’s not a red flag — it’s a competitive advantage. Rzepecki leads The Raba Partnership, an investment group focused on early-stage technology companies in emerging markets, especially Africa. Here, he shares how founders can sell an investor on an idea — or even an industry — that no one has imagined until now.
You focus on emerging markets. If a founder is outside of Silicon Valley, they might feel like they have a disadvantage. How can they convince investors that being an outsider is actually a superpower?
The first thing that comes to mind is: competition. There’s incredible talent everywhere, but the depth of capital markets is very different across different ecosystems. In places like Silicon Valley, people and capital are in abundance. In our markets — less obvious markets — there’s often too little capital, and very large incumbents that have never been tested by traditional kinds of venture-backed challengers. They’re very profitable, but they’re stagnant, right?
A great example of that is the U.S. airline industry. There’s demand, there’s growth — no one’s going debate that there will be more people flying — but if you look at the entire industry, it erodes to almost no one earning a profit. If you can raise capital and build a formidable early team and go after these incumbents [in less obvious markets], the field really opens up.
In highly competitive ecosystems, if someone sees a company that’s running away with a particular industry, venture capital firms start to fund competitors very, very quickly. But in emerging markets it’s the inverse of that, which is a powerful thing that’s not widely understood by venture investors.
Related: 5 Daily Habits Investors Look For in Founders — and How to Build Them
There tends to be an expectation that emerging markets are riskier. How should founders address that when talking to investors?
Oftentimes, the “more risk” narrative comes from oversimplification. We love dispelling those narratives with actual examples — real businesses built in these markets. When you can show someone a tangible example of what’s possible, it completely changes the course of the dialogue. I think founders would benefit from doing the same, really highlighting the potential. Because it exists, right? You could pick almost any market, any country, and you can find examples of incredibly large businesses. It’s just telling the story, and telling it with data and a depth of understanding.
When it comes to taking on major incumbents, how do you convince investors that you’re the David to take on that particular Goliath?
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