Open a conversation
Tell us about your situation.
Pick the route below that best describes your organisation, or the shape of the conversation you want to open. Send a few sentences. Someone from our team responds within two working days. What happens next depends on the route — see each panel for the specifics.
Six routes · Pick one
Whichever route you pick, someone from our team responds within two working days. What happens next depends on the route — open each panel for the specifics. For most, the next step is a 45-minute working session; for ecosystem expressions of interest and opportunities, the relevant team picks it up directly.
Route · Commercial organisation
Banks, telcos, retailers, insurers, energy operators, SMEs and growth-stage businesses.
Any commercial organisation working through a strategic situation: unlocking value from existing assets, building a new venture, or transforming a model that is not working the way it used to. The role you hold inside the organisation matters less than the kind of organisation it is.
Future Lab handles strategy, programme design, venture co-creation, and the operating model around the technology. If your need is principally technology delivery (custom software, product engineering, platform builds), our sister firm Sankofa Lab handles those directly.
Within two working days
A short response confirming receipt and proposing two or three time slots for a 45-minute working session.
The first session
A working session, not a pitch. We listen first, ask sharp questions, and either propose how we would engage or tell you honestly that we are not the right firm for your situation.
Written follow-up
Within seven working days, a structured note summarising what we heard, what we would propose, and what an engagement would cost and deliver. Decline or proceed at your pace.
Route · Impact organisation
NGOs, foundations operating programmes themselves, social enterprises, multilaterals delivering on the ground.
You operate programmes, deliver services, manage grants, or build ventures inside an impact mandate. You are looking at innovation, venture building, capability transfer, or a structural funding response (RECAST).
If you are uncertain whether RECAST is the right pathway, write that here — the first conversation is where we work out which engagement mode fits.
Route · Funder or commissioner
Grant-making foundations, donors, multilaterals, DFIs, government agencies and academic commissioners.
Institutions with budget commissioning programmes for delivery on the ground — RECAST or related work for portfolio organisations facing structural funding disruption, single-organisation underwrites, catalytic windows across a cohort, or programme-design briefs in your domain.
If you are scoping a window, name the candidate organisations or sector you have in view; the first conversation covers portfolio scope and the engagement shape that fits.
Route · Capital provider
Venture capital, venture debt, impact finance, family offices, sovereign and public funds.
Investors looking to design a fund or vehicle, structure a portfolio support programme, access curated deal flow from our venture pipeline, or co-build market infrastructure that strengthens the deployment of capital into African markets.
Capital providers also enter the ecosystem on the supply side via the Vantage Partner Programme as a Strategic Alliance partner. If your enquiry is about joining as an alliance partner rather than commissioning work, apply via Vantage directly.
Route · Ecosystem partner
Specialist firms, individual senior practitioners, capability providers, alliance institutions.
Organisations and people contributing capability into engagements we lead. Senior specialists joining the Mavens Network. Organisations joining one of the open Vantage Partner Programme categories. Practitioners joining the firm. Each route has its own form on the Join page; this form is for general questions, expressions of interest that do not yet fit one of the routes, or correspondence about an existing introduction.
Route · Share an opportunity
An RFP from your organisation, or an ecosystem signal worth circulating.
Two shapes of opportunity arrive here. The first is a formal procurement opportunity originating from your organisation — a Request for Proposal (RFP), tender, Expression of Interest (EOI), grant or concept-note solicitation, framework or panel appointment, consortium-formation invitation, or similar. The second is an ecosystem signal worth circulating to others — an event, a commercial opportunity, a regulatory consultation, a hiring call, or a programme open for applications.
Procurement enquiries route to our partnerships and engagement leads for assessment. Ecosystem signals are reviewed and, where appropriate, circulated through Insights, the Mavens digest, or partner channels.
Other ways in
- Looking for technology delivery? Custom software, product engineering, platform builds — Future Lab's sister firm Sankofa Lab handles those directly.
- Press, media, or speaking invitation? Write to pressfuturelab.africa — interview, comment, panel and keynote requests.
- Existing client? Reach your engagement lead directly, or write to clientsfuturelab.africa for matters outside your normal channel.