The best resources are elsewhere

On a routine call with my parents a couple of months ago, I was shocked to learn that my brother was finalizing plans to move to Russia in pursuit of better economic opportunities. After initial shock, I sprung into action to block the move. And when we leveraged my brother’s large social media platform to warn other young Zimbabweans deceived by this fraudulent military recruiting scheme, we realized it was widespread.

Now, you might be wondering what this has to do with companies… well, the best resources are not found in a single place.

The Philosophy of the Opportunity

As the world fragments into competing spheres of power, one reality is becoming increasingly clear: no country possesses every strategic advantage. China controls critical rare earth supply chains. The US continues to lead in technological innovation. And, Africa holds the world’s strongest long-term demographic profile.

In this environment, enduring advantage belongs to companies capable of operating across systems, markets, and geographies and not within a single national lens. Founders with a global orientation can identify structural asymmetries earlier, access differentiated pools of talent and capital, and build more compelling products. The result is stronger execution, more resilient business models, and unfair advantages.

The Background

I just finished reading Jeff Stewart’s book on IPOs which I thoroughly enjoyed and recommend. In the book, Jeff argues that venture capital has overcorrected for staying private. For the past ~20 years, venture-backed companies have followed a “stay private longer” playbook and Jeff believes that this is now wrong, and increasingly value-destructive. Instead, a new system is emerging where: (i) Companies will go public earlier (ii) Capital formation happens across borders (iii) Public markets become a tool for scaling, and not just a place to find liquidity.

Jeff points to the convergence of a few key forces driving this shift:

• Technology (AI, distributed systems, global connectivity) is making public markets more accessible and improving speed to list

• Global capital flows: wealth is younger, more digital, and less tied to geography

• Regulatory and exchange competition across countries

• Venture underperformance / liquidity constraints: The growing pressure to return cash to LPs

In summary, capital markets and capability are becoming networked and global, and not siloed by country.

I agree with Jeff’s take, especially because IPOs can be a powerful tool to unlock capital for social progress, giving a chance to the majority of companies that cannot or don’t need to become unicorns to generate attractive cash returns and societal value. And, beyond capital, a global perspective is particularly important to accessing key markets that drive extraordinary value.

The Global Markets Driving Value

Value creation today is an exercise of finding value in asymmetric markets and this means customer, money, ideas, innovation, and people.

Markets for customers: Global consumers face amazingly similar problems and many companies that are able to solve them across borders from the get go have unlocked tremendous value. A company that quickly come to mind is Jeeves. Within our portfolio, Pave is starting to scale its cashflow analytics infrastructure for credit to corporate customers outside of the US.
Markets for capital: Earlier this week, I attended an event at London Stock Exchange’s offices covering the advantages of listing on the LSE and the benefits for smaller companies to accessing patient, sophisticated investors early. Companies like Borderless and Odin are also mobilizing and aggregating global capital.
Markets for ideas: At Fairbridge, we are hosting a roundtable to discuss reshoring healthcare innovations, developed in resource constrained environments with the help of US foreign aid assistance and talent. These ideas can now be applied back home in rural and low income urban settings.  
Markets for innovation: Impact investors in Singapore and Netherlands fundamentally look at investing for social progress differently from their American counterparts. They take a lens of innovation for survival (Netherlands is below sea level and Singapore has no natural resources) vs. social engineering.
Markets for talent: Deel has built a scalable global business helping companies to recruit and manage talent globally. Companies like Contra mobilize accessible talent globally helping startups scale with capital efficiency.

In Summary

In a world where staying private longer and focusing on local markets seem safer, I am convinced this is the best time to invest with a global lens and to prepare companies to access the critical global resources that create unfair advantages.

Join Our Mission

If you would like to explore partnering with Fairbridge, I’d love to hear from you and if you are a founder, you can apply for funding from us.