Intelligence & Operations Analyst
We’re looking for an analyst — someone who thrives on deep research, is intellectually rigorous, and curious about Africa’s startup landscape in all its messy, beautiful complexity. You spot what others ignore. You ask questions most don’t.
The role
What you will do
Conduct deep research on emerging sectors across African economies
Triangulate startup information - even when data is messy, missing, or contradictory
Go on “truth seeking missions” to understand what the market is really saying (and not saying), try products, and get in the weeds of what the ecosystem is building
Source and assess investment opportunities, from half baked research projects to fully fleshed out products. You’ll be in all TG/WA/Discord groups, builder communities, and where the smart kids hang out.
Produce sharp, insight-rich internal memos / position papers
Your work will shape:
How we surface and assess investment opportunities, how we best support our portfolio companies
Our internal memos, market analyses, and decision frameworks
The tracking and organization of our pipeline from lead to portfolio
And yes, we want you to:
Question our assumptions
Push back when something doesn’t make sense
Roll your sleeves up and create a high performance team with us
What we value most
Deep curiosity with hunger to learn and grow
Radical attention to detail
Real world intuition - you’re often asking if what you see actually makes sense
Ability to drive 5-10 projects in parallel
Bias to action
Open, honest, and clear communication
Intellectual humility and truth seeking
Value you get
You will constantly be pushed and challenged to grow
Deep exposure into the startup world, investment decisions, and our vast global network
“Analyst” means brainpower, not ‘the most junior person in the team’ - you influence with your work
Mentorship with room for career growth
Details
Remote, preferably based somewhere on the continent
Full time
Travel from time to time
Competitive compensation with upside based on performance
Interested?
Instead of a cover letter, we want you to complete 1 of the below tasks to help us evaluate your thinking and email us your answer to join@lavavc.io with the subject line ‘intelligence’.
1. Pick any startup operating in a country other than Nigeria, Kenya, or South Africa.
In max 300 words, tell us:
What makes this startup interesting? What potential do you see that is not obvious?
How did you find them - be specific about your steps, not just the source name
2 questions you would ask the founder if you had 10 minutes with them
Bonus points if the company has minimal online press coverage
2. Your colleague has been adding every crypto startup they see into a Notion page. It’s now a messy list of 187 entries with inconsistent notes, some duplicates and little categorization.
Draft a step-by-step clean-up plan in bullet points (max 10 steps). Your goal is to:
Make the database useful again
Organize it in a way that’s easy to maintain
List the first 3 entries that matter most (after names, emails, and website).
You don’t need to write formulas or use tools — just tell us what you’d do and in what order.
3. Choose one of these verticals in Africa
Stablecoin - fiat On/Off ramp
Bitcoin mining
Credit scoring onchain
AI for healthcare
For your selected vertical, send us a short 400 words on:
Where the most overlooked opportunities are — and why
An obvious and a non obvious red flag to watch out for when evaluating founders in this space
One startup (live or dead) that you think deserves attention, and your brief take on it
Do not limit yourself to generic frameworks or AI summaries - we’re looking for insight, not polish
If your brain is diving into the weeds of a task (or all) then there could be a fit. If you are wondering why we’re asking for a task upfront, then this might not be for you.
If you got this far, you’ll notice we never asked for your CV. That’s on purpose. Do the task above first.