Greg Cooke is a South African-born entrepreneur now operating from the UK, spearheading Growth and Product at Rafiki, a startup he co-founded after extensive experience in performance and growth marketing. Rafiki develops software that streamlines international subcontracting by leveraging stablecoin technology and multi-party invoicing systems.
Supported by Baobab Network, Jobtech Alliance, CVLabs, and angel investors, Rafiki is currently in private beta and is launching its pre-seed funding round as it prepares for broader market entry.
- How would you describe your work to a young child?
I create tools that help grown-ups collaborate more easily.
Picture making a pizza: you need dough, sauce, cheese, and toppings. I built a special kitchen called Rafiki that helps the dough maker, sauce maker, cheese maker, and topping maker all work together smoothly to bake a delicious pizza.
- What are the biggest challenges when paying people internationally?
Cross-border payments remain slow, costly, and fragmented-often taking several days to process, incurring fees up to 5%, and requiring individual transactions for each payment. Rafiki addresses these issues by consolidating multiple invoices into a single process, enabling instant settlement via stablecoins, and simplifying currency conversion across different countries.
- If Rafiki were a superhero, what special ability would it have?
Rafiki embodies the wisdom and guidance of a trusted mentor, much like Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings. It brings people together, fostering cooperation and shared success through insightful leadership and foresight.
- Can you share an early experience that highlighted the scale of Africa’s subcontracting challenges?
Last year, while managing a project for a European client, we coordinated five freelancers and a boutique agency spread across South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, and the UK. Handling payments was a tedious manual process. We experimented with freelancer platforms, payroll services, and fintech solutions, but none were designed for multi-party collaboration-they only supported one-to-one transactions.
Through conversations with senior freelancers and agency leaders, it became evident that subcontracting and teamwork were growing trends, and the difficulties we encountered were widespread across the industry.
- What is a common misunderstanding about multi-party subcontracting?
Many mistakenly view multi-party subcontracting as merely a way to cut costs. This perspective, focused on finding the cheapest options at the expense of quality, overlooks the true value.
When executed properly, subcontracting is about creating collective value. Consider a film production: a successful movie isn’t made by one person but by a team of directors, actors, editors, and designers working in sync. Similarly, in fields like strategy, design, marketing, and technology, specialists collaborating produce outcomes far beyond what any individual could achieve alone.
Rafiki’s Talent Services and Rafiki OS facilitate this kind of coordinated teamwork, promoting synergy rather than exploitation. If you believe only traditional agencies or in-house teams can deliver quality, you’re relying on outdated models.
- If you had the power to change one thing in Africa’s freelance ecosystem, what would it be?
Independent professionals and small agencies represent the fastest-growing yet most underserved segment of Africa’s creative and professional sectors. They often lack job security, benefits, and access to robust financial services. Bridging this gap and fostering collaboration would reduce risks, open doors to larger clients, and help build sustainable, flexible careers at scale.
- What excites you most about the future of fractional collaboration in Africa?
The fractional economy in Africa holds tremendous promise to unlock vast new sources of value. Although still emerging, this model has the potential to position the continent as a global leader in flexible, collaborative work.