Former Vice President of Ingressive Capital, Olu Oyinsan, has launched a venture fund, Oui Capital, to provide funding for high growth seed-stage startups in Africa.
The venture fund, established in partnership with a former software engineer at IBM and Techstars, Francesco Andreoli, also aims at offering mentorship services from technology and industry experts to its portfolio companies.
Oui Capital is a $10 million venture fund which targets early-stage tech startups, not just in Nigeria, but also in other African countries like Kenya and South Africa. The company will engage in pre-series ‘A’ financing of companies in Fintech, Mobility, Innovative healthcare, Education and Two-sided marketplaces.
Managing partner and Director of Oui Capital, Olu Oyinsan was until recently a vice president at Ingressive Capital where he pioneered investments. Ingressive Capital is an early stage, Silicon Valley backed venture fund which made early investments into several African startups like Paystack, Wifi.com.ng, Ogavenue, Awabike etc.
Founding partner, Francesco Andreoli is a former software engineer at tech giants, IBM and Techstars mentor.
“With Oui Capital, we will make funding available for early-stage technology startups on the continent,” Mr Oyinsan says. “Africa is undergoing a transformation largely driven by technology- similar to the Asian boom of a decade ago which has created over 200 unicorns to date. It is pertinent that ventures like Oui Capital are available to finance this transformation to create wealth and impact.”
He also noted that, “we are mostly interested in companies which are solving real problems with scalable solutions, technology companies solving the everyday problems of Africa’s 1.2 billion people. Our very early-stage investments support startups with significant growth and impact potential.”
On its advisory board, Oui Capital boasts an impressive and vastly experienced group of industry professionals. They include Shyam Kamadoli, managing partner of AVG blockchain fund; Gbenga Oyebode, managing partner Aluko & Oyebode and board member MTN and Access Bank PLC and a host of others.
Speaking on the purpose of the fund, founding partner, Francesco Andreoli explained that the enterprise aims to provide solutions for two major challenges facing African entrepreneurs.
“In speaking with over 100 technology entrepreneurs on the continent, we have realized that access to early-stage funding is just one of the major setbacks of building for scale,” he says. “This fund combines the solutions to the two most pressing challenges of African entrepreneurs today- access to funding and lack of high-quality mentors/advisors.
“Asides funding, Oui Capital has created a pool of mentors the world who are subject matter experts in critical need areas for young companies who also double as advisors available to its portfolio companies at no additional cost. The importance of this to a startup, especially in Africa, cannot be overemphasized. Our goal is to help entrepreneurs in every way possible to scale their impact. This is in line with the company’s slogan…” saying yes, one entrepreneur at a time.”
