Redsalt Invests in SoundWave Creative to Cultivate Growth of Sierra Leone’s Music Sector
Guest Contributor Redsalt, an impact-first angel investment organisation, has invested in SoundWave Creative to support the development of infrastructure connecting Sierra Leone’s live music ecosystem, creating new opportunities for artists, venues and audiences.
The investment underlines Redsalt’s continued confidence in the Sierra Leone market as the country’s first active angel investor.
The funding will support the construction of SoundWave Creative’s live music events platform. It is designed to address a key challenge facing the creative sector: the lack of infrastructure connecting artistic talent with venues and audiences in a consistent, commercially viable way.
Through SoundWave’s platform:
- Venues can list their spaces and availability, turning otherwise empty calendar slots into revenue-generating opportunities.
- Artists can connect with venues actively seeking live music, reducing their reliance on cold outreach and informal booking networks.
- Fans can discover live music events across the city and purchase tickets through a more accessible, organised platform.
Meeting the challenge of building a thriving live music scene in Sierra Leone requires infrastructure to reliably connect artists with audiences. SoundWave aims to help build those connections, creating opportunities for talent and venue owners to earn income while making better use of the city’s spaces.
The investment will support SoundWave Creative in building a stronger foundation for growth in the country’s creative economy and open opportunities for forging cross-border connections with other African enterprises, as exemplified by SoundWave’s partnership with Kolaborate Platforms, a digital services agency and fellow Redsalt portfolio startup based in Kampala, Uganda.
The SoundWave Creative deal marks Redsalt’s second investment in Sierra Leone, after they inked a US$75,000 agreement in 2025 with Freetown Waste Transformers, the waste management company founded by Ami Dumbuya. Redsalt maintains its commitment to sourcing and supporting innovative, investment-ready businesses that can contribute to inclusive economic growth in the country.
Gabriele Pulvermueller, Founder of Redsalt: We’re delighted to partner with SoundWave to build the bedrock of a thriving music sector in Sierra Leone. The creative economy is often underlooked as an engine of sustainable economic growth and an important source of youth employment. By investing in SoundWave Creative, we are betting on the potential for local creative talent and entrepreneurial innovation to build an economically sustainable model for Sierra Leone’s music sector, one that can be replicated across the region.
Kate Krontiris Sengeh, CEO of SoundWave Creative: Live music is one of the most visible parts of a creative economy, but it depends on structures most people never see. That backend is what SoundWave is bringing to our music ecosystem: a platform for matching venues that want to activate their space with artists looking for consistent stages, and turning every one of those bookings into a discoverable event that fans can find and book. Our partnership with Redsalt is helping us lay strong foundations for sector development, so that Sierra Leone’s music sector grows into a real source of livelihoods for artists, sound engineers, venue staff, promoters and the many small businesses that come alive on a show night. Our focus is simple: artists paid on time, venues with full calendars, and every event leaving money in local hands. That is how creativity becomes an industry.”
About SoundWave Creative
SoundWave Creative is a multi-stream creative economy platform and live music incubator in Freetown, Sierra Leone, focused on artist-venue matching, live events, and intellectual property.
About Redsalt:
Redsalt is an impact-first angel investment organisation providing patient capital and strategic support to early-stage businesses. Through equity investment, governance support and mentorship, Redsalt works to address the missing middle in finance: the funding gap faced by businesses that have outgrown microfinance but remain too small or high-risk for traditional banks and institutional investors.
Redsalt aims to help promising, purpose-driven businesses build sustainable, scalable operations while contributing to job creation, stronger local economies and lasting economic value in frontier markets.
The transaction was facilitated with legal support from Bakarr & Associates.