How fundraising actually works — explained in plain English.

Imagine you're Chioma, a 29-year-old founder in Lagos. You've built a logistics app for traders moving goods between Onitsha and Lagos. It's growing — but you need ₦80 million to hire engineers and expand to Aba and Port Harcourt.

Traditionally in Nigeria, to raise that money you would:

1. 01Beg friends and family in WhatsApp groups.
2. 02Forward your pitch deck on email to "uncles" who may or may not read it.
3. 03Sign hand-drawn agreements at a lawyer's office in Ikeja that take 3 weeks to draft and cost ₦500K each.
4. 04Receive funds via bank transfers with no proper audit trail.
5. 05"Remember" who owns what % of your company on a lost Excel sheet.

CAPTABLE replaces all of that with one platform where a founder builds their cap table (the official record of who owns shares), creates a funding round, sends a digital SAFE agreement (a standard investment contract), the investor signs digitally, pays with their bank card via Paystack, and shares are recorded automatically. It supports NGN and ZAR natively — no crypto, no offshore intermediaries.

Both sign up on CAPTABLE — web at captable.co.za or the mobile app from the Play Store / App Store.

Sign-up screen

Chioma lands on the signup page and sees two large role cards: Company (raising funds) or Investor (wanting to invest). She clicks Company. The form asks for first name, last name, company name, email, phone, and a strong password (must include uppercase, lowercase, digit and a special character).

Email verification

Chioma receives an email, clicks the confirmation link, and is redirected to the onboarding wizard. This step exists for the same reason banks send OTPs — it stops fake company accounts from being created.

This is a 5-step wizard. Chioma cannot skip it — without it, the platform doesn't know who her company really is, and investors won't trust the listing.

Step 1 · Company information

Trading name

RouteLink Logistics (the name people see)

Registered name

RouteLink Logistics Limited (legal name on documents)

Registration number

CAC RC number in Nigeria; CIPC number in South Africa

Tax number

FIRS TIN in Nigeria; SARS tax number in SA

Industry · Currency · FYE

Logistics · NGN · 31 December

Physical address

14B Admiralty Way, Lekki Phase 1, Lagos

Step 2 · Share structure

Chioma defines how her company's ownership is set up:

Authorised shares

1,000,000 — legal maximum the company can ever issue

Issued shares

800,000 — actually given out today

Price per share

₦100

Founder allocation

80%

ESOP pool

10% reserved for future hires

Step 3 · Founders & shareholders

Chioma adds herself and her co-founder Emeka — each with their NIN, number of shares, equity %, and whether they're a founder / director. Many Nigerian startups fail because two friends start a business with no written agreement, then fight years later over who owns what. CAPTABLE forces this conversation on day one.

Step 4 · Documents & compliance

Chioma uploads MoA, AoA, CAC certificate, tax clearance, last three bank statements, and (optionally) a shareholder agreement.

Step 5 · Review & submit

She reviews everything, ticks the agreement, and clicks Submit. The company is officially registered on the platform. She lands on her dashboard.

The sidebar groups everything into five sections:

Core

Overview, Company profile

Cap table

Cap table, Shareholders, Funding rounds, Valuations

ESOP

Option grants, Vesting schedules, Option exercises

Operations

Documents, Invitations, Compliance

System

Settings

Visiting Cap Table shows a clean register: every share, every shareholder, every percentage on one audit-grade page. In a few months, when she's raised money, she can show this exact table to a bank, a new investor, or the CAC — and everyone will see the same numbers.

What are options, in plain English?

Chioma clicks Funding rounds → New round. A 5-step modal captures:

Round name

"Seed Round — 2026"

Round type

Seed (other options: Series A/B/C, Bridge)

Target amount

₦80,000,000

Pre-money valuation

₦400,000,000

Closing date

31 December 2026

Use of funds

Product 40% · Marketing 30% · Team 20% · Working capital 10%

Chioma clicks Invite investor. The form captures Tunde's name, email, phone and type (Angel). Then she defines the menu of investment tiers:

Then SAFE terms: valuation cap ₦500,000,000, discount rate 20%, full editable contract text, risk disclosure. She clicks Send.

The invitation page

Tunde receives an email, signs up as Investor, and lands on the invitation page. He sees:

1. 01Contract summary — company, round, valuation cap, discount rate, expiry
2. 02Three radio tiers — Starter (₦1M), Growth (₦2M), Premium (₦5M). He selects Growth.
3. 03Full SAFE terms (scrollable legal text)
4. 04Risk disclosure in a clearly-marked warning box

Three-step signature flow

1. 01Clicks "Accept & review terms"
2. 02Ticks "I have read and agree to the SAFE terms, conditions and risk disclosure"
3. 03Draws his signature and initials on a digital pad (or pastes a saved signature image)

On Sign & Invest, his signature, the selected tier and the timestamp are recorded. The invitation status moves to accepted.

CAPTABLE redirects Tunde to Paystack's hosted page — the same one he uses for DSTV and Jumia. He pays with any of:

1. 01Card — Visa / Verve / Mastercard (most common)
2. 02Bank transfer — Paystack generates a temporary virtual account
3. 03USSD — e.g. *737*xxx# on GTBank
4. 04Direct bank debit

After payment, Paystack redirects back, CAPTABLE double-checks with Paystack's verify API, then marks the payment as success. Tunde sees a confirmation page and clicks View my investment.

On Tunde's dashboard he sees a dark Portfolio value card showing ₦2,000,000 with the status SAFE Signed and a guidance message: “Your SAFE converts to shares when the company completes a priced funding round. No action needed.”

On Chioma's side, the invitation status updates in real time. The funding round progress bar shows ₦2,000,000 / ₦80,000,000 raised (2.5%). She countersigns the SAFE — the contract is now legally binding on both sides.

Chioma eventually raises a Series A from a VC at a ₦1 billion valuation. CAPTABLE automatically runs the SAFE conversion:

The cap table updates automatically. Tunde's dashboard status changes to Shares Issued. He's officially a part-owner of RouteLink. If the company is ever acquired or goes public, he's paid proportionally.

The complete journey, side by side

If you only remember a few things, remember these. Each is also defined in context above the first time it appears.