Strategy, capital and culture, built into working ventures.
Addis Futures Lab is a venture studio that turns cultural and market intelligence into products, platforms and businesses, and invests in every venture it builds.
Founded by Metasebia Yoseph, AFL works between Addis Ababa and Washington, DC. We read a market closely, design the venture, put studio capital behind it and build it with people who know the context.
We also advise a small number of partners on strategy and market entry. What we learn there feeds back into the studio.
We don’t stop at strategy. We test, build and iterate, and we write down what the field teaches us.
Where we build
We work in sectors where culture shapes demand and existing systems misread it.
-
Credit and payment tools for people and businesses that conventional models overlook, including youth, women and informal traders.
-
Products designed and made in Africa for regional and global markets, with claims we can stand behind.
-
Platforms, formats and events that treat creative work as an economy.
See it in practice: Design Week Addis Ababa.
-
Learning products that carry language and culture into digital form.
-
Culturally grounded data for AI systems, built with African participation rather than extracted from it.
-
Products that connect people to culture, travel and services across the continent and its diaspora.
-
Low-carbon products and processes designed around local resources and local conditions.
-
Value chains where design, data and branding keep more of the value at origin.
What we’re learning
Frontier Notes, presented by Addis Futures Lab, documents what we learn building ventures across Africa’s fastest-changing markets: quarterly essays on Substack, conversations and field videos on YouTube, and visual notes on Instagram.