The rise of AI content creation

As a seasoned content marketer and former co-founder of a content writing agency, I've spent the last few years testing out a whole host of different AI writing tools.

When GPT-3 launched in 2020, I knew it was only a matter of time until we'd start seeing AI content writing tools proliferate. If you're not familiar with GPT-3, it stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer 3 and it's an autoregressive language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like content.

The first wave of these tools were mediocre and I wrote a post about them here. I concluded that at best they would be supplementary to content writing. Humans would still lead the way.

The current state of play

Fast forward to 2022 and the industry has advanced by an order of magnitude. With the right inputs, tools like Jasper (formerly Jarvis), Copysmith and Rytr can produce content akin to that of a human.

I recently put Jasper to the test and was really impressed. I was able to produce a really good blog post in under 10 minutes! See the video below.

Where to from here?

I think it’s fair to say that AI content writing has arrived. Due to the self-perpetuating nature of machine learning, AI writing tools are only going to improve over the coming months and years. If you’re serious about scaling your content creation, then integrating an AI writing tool into your business may be worth trying.

East African VC closes $13.5 million fund

Antler, a well-known VC and venture builder recently saw it’s subsidiary Antler East Africa close a $13.5 million fund to invest in early-stage tech startups in East Africa.

The round was oversubscribed with the initial target being $10 million. Antler decided to extend the fundraise to $13.5 million. Some of the LPs (limited partners) include Tesla backer, Baillie Gifford, family office, Canica, and institutional investors like the IFC.

Antler East Africa was launched in August 2019 and up to now has operated exclusively on a venture building model with two cohorts each year.

To date, five cohorts with 153 founders have passed through its accelerator program, and the firm has made 14 investments. A few of them include Trycooked, Honeycoin, AIfluence, Uncover Skincare, and Vybe.

Antler East Africa’s new fund allows it to now also focus on investing in some of the region most promising startups. For existing startups, 2-6 weeks is all that’s needed for Antler East Africa to work with a team before the firm writes its first check.

Antler East Africa says it will invest up to $100K in these startups at a “mutually agreed valuation.” It plans to make 35 new investments from pre-seed to Series A over the next three years. There’s also an arrangement for the global Antler fund to follow up on some rounds all the way to Series C.

“What changed now is, in the past, we were going only from zero to like the first $100,000 ticket. But now we’re saying we can also take in existing teams and ideas that formed outside of Antler, but they can come to us and then we can invest just like any other VC would,” Kebede noted.

In The News 🚀

🇪🇬 Egyptian B2B marketplace Mowarrid has been acquired by Saudi B2B e-commerce Sary as the latter grows its footprint across the MENA region.

🇺🇬 Uganda’s Rocket Health raises $5m Series A round to aid it’s East African expansion.

🇺🇸 The US International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and US African Development Foundation (USADF) have launched the African Small Business Catalyst (ASBC). This is a business accelerator for early growth SME’s across Sub-Saharan Africa.

🇪🇬 Egyptian trucking logistics startup Naqla has raised a $10.5m pre-Series A round.