At a current investor assembly, early-stage African investor Oui Capital knowledgeable restricted companions that it had returned its $4 million debut fund following the sale of some shares within the enterprise banking platform Moniepoint.
The African fintech unicorn has thus far confirmed to be a standout funding for five-year-old Oui Capital. When it launched its first fund, it invested $150,000 within the Nigeria-based firm, an early guess that has since generated an $8 million return—sufficient to pay again the fund.
Particularly, final October, when Moniepoint raised $110 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation in a Collection C spherical led by Growth Companions Worldwide, Oui Capital offered a few of its shares into the deal; now, with its fund repaid, any future returns will likely be pure revenue for its buyers.
It’s a uncommon feat for a younger VC agency—many globally fail to return their first fund—and even rarer in Africa’s enterprise ecosystem. Nonetheless, it underscores how profitable some early-stage bets, particularly in fintech, might be on the continent. Oui Capital joins different pan-African buyers like CRE VC and 4DX Ventures which have returned their first funds after backing different unicorns, similar to Andela and Flutterwave, in line with two folks conversant in investor dealings on the continent.
TechCrunch contacted Oui Capital for remark, and the agency confirmed the information.
Moniepoint, beforehand referred to as TeamApt, wasn’t a family title in 2019 when Oui Capital first thought-about it. On the time, the corporate primarily constructed monetary merchandise and software program for itself and banks.
Oui Capital, based by Olu Oyinsan and Francesco Andreoli, was amongst its earliest buyers and likewise one of many few to assist the outfit’s pivot to Moniepoint, a enterprise banking and funds platform that has since turn out to be Nigeria’s largest service provider acquirer.
“They’ve been with us by the phases, from in search of product-market match to attending to manufacturing,” Tosin Enioluwadara, Moniepoint co-founder and CEO, mentioned of Oui Capital in a 2021 video. “Olu [managing partner at Oui Capital] has been useful in advisory; we discuss by technique, governance, and key issues that have an effect on the corporate. They’ve additionally been useful in our funding campaigns, from introducing potential buyers to typically simply considering round our narrative and positioning…”
Exits in Africa’s tech scene stay uncommon, with solely 143 out of two,971 enterprise offers since 2019 resulting in exits, in line with The Large Deal. Most startups are nonetheless of their early or development phases — removed from the maturity wanted for vital exits. In contrast to developed markets with sturdy M&A and IPO choices, Africa’s tech ecosystem remains to be rising, leaving fewer startups in an exit-ready place.
Then again, enterprise investments sometimes take 5–10 years to mature, so many African-focused VC companies nonetheless await returns. For Oui Capital, that wait took 5 years. When the agency joined Moniepoint’s seed spherical, the corporate was valued at a $12.5 million valuation, as revealed in an investor report seen by TechCrunch.
Anecdotally, smaller funds are simpler to return as a consequence of their dimension. Information from Cambridge Associates, which builds and manages funding portfolios for institutional buyers, bucks up this development.
However extra importantly, Oyinsan credit his fund’s portfolio development for the agency’s traction so far. “It’s not nearly fund dimension—it’s about what you spend money on, your entry worth, how a lot fairness you personal, how a lot you make investments, and if you resolve to exit,” he tells TechCrunch.
Different startups in Oui Capital’s portfolio embrace Duplo, which digitizes cost flows for African B2B enterprises; Maad, a B2B e-commerce platform for fast-moving client items; and Matta, a B2B market for chemical substances, from its first fund, Mentors Fund 1.
The investor, with 22 startups throughout two funds, writes checks of as much as $400,000 for seed-stage startups throughout Africa.
In 2022, Oui Capital launched a second fund, Mentors Fund 2. Whereas the early-stage agency initially focused $30 million, it closed at $12 million, in line with Oyinsan. He additionally shared that whereas the fund has no plans to hurry into fundraising as a consequence of its sturdy place, it’d elevate a 3rd fund later this yr.
