Raise

Digitize equity management

🇰🇪 Kenya FintechAcquired and discontinued

Epitaph

“Here lies Raise. For seven years it kept cap tables and equity in order for Africa's startups and SMEs. It never found a business model that vested, so it moved its own users onto Carta and folded its shares into someone else's table.”

Overview

Born: 2018 (Year)
Died: September 2025 (Month)
Lifespan: 8 years
Fate: Acquired and discontinued
Headquarters: 🇰🇪 Kenya
Category: Fintech, Legal and Compliance
Stage at death: Seed
Primary cause: No product-market fit
Contributing causes: Business model or unit economics

Death certificate

Timeline

2018Founding
Raise founded by Marvin Coleby, Tina Nyamache and Eugene Mutai in Kenya
2019Launch
Raise launched an alpha version of its equity-management platform
2021Funding
Raise raised a $25,000 investment from Microtraction and onboarded 200+ companies managing $150 million in equity
2023Carta investment
Carta invested in Raise
September 2025Shutdown
Raise shut down, migrated users to Carta, and founder Marvin Coleby joined Carta.

Autopsy report

Why did Raise shut down?

Kenyan equity-management platform Raise shut down in September 2025 after seven years, migrating its users to US-based Carta and offering free users access to Carta Launch, after founder Marvin Coleby concluded the company had 'never quite found the right business model for venture' investing in Africa; Coleby subsequently joined Carta as head of product for Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

What Raise attempted

Raise built cap-table and equity-management software for African startups and SMEs, offering tools for equity issuance, cap table management and compliance aimed at the continent's venture capital ecosystem.

What worked

By mid-2020 Raise had facilitated over $20 million in fundraising transactions, and by 2021 had onboarded more than 200 companies managing a combined $150 million in equity; it raised a $25,000 investment from Microtraction along with backing from 500 Startups, CRE Ventures, Launch Africa, Lofty Capital, Vibe Capital and XFactor Ventures, and later secured investment from Carta itself in 2023.

What happened

After seven years serving Africa's venture-backed startup ecosystem, Raise's founders concluded that a standalone cap-table business focused on venture deals could not scale sustainably on the continent. In September 2025 the company announced it was shutting down, migrating its paying customers to Carta and giving free users access to Carta Launch, while founder Marvin Coleby joined Carta directly.

Lessons for future builders

Serving a small, cyclical venture market is hard to scale as a standalone company, however loved the product. Test whether your total addressable revenue can support a business, not just adoption, before committing years to a single niche.