It’s well-trodden ground that founders make good investors for startups, a mantra preached by luminaries like Paul Graham and Naval Ravikant. 
 
Global collective of founders.  MAGIC Fund (yes, those are supposed to be all caps) takes this one step further in terms of its strategy and vision and has raised a new $30M fund on the strength of its convictions.  Best described as a global collective of founders, the fund plans to invest the new money in early-stage startups across Africa, Europe, Latin America, North America, and Southeast Asia per an article in Techcrunch.
 
MAGIC Fund has 12 founders who act as general partners.
 
Broad investments. The firm’s first fund launched in 2017 with $1.5M and returned 5X over a period of 3 years, according to managing partner Adegoke Olobusi.   Since 2017, MAGIC has invested in 70 companies including Retool, Novo, Payfazz, and Mono across the emerging markets. 

The vision.  The idea was to bring global founders together with diverse skillsets in diverse industries and geographies to evaluate deals better and drive value for each other per Olubusi.

“The way we thought of MAGIC was a fund of micro funds built by founders for founders,” said another managing partner at the firm, Matt Greenleaf.

More than money.  MAGIC’s founders help their companies in emerging markets where on-the-ground operational help is needed in industries with numerous unknowns and uncertainties. 
 
As Olobusi explained, “what actually drove value for us were other investors who were founders and operators, and other experienced people who were able to help us find product-market fit and fight regulators. These were actually the people in the trenches with us.” 
 
That is the X factor that the fund wants to bring to each of its investments to help drive value.

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