Happy Thursday! I hope you’re all gearing up for an amazing weekend. As for me,
I’m just popping in to share Track 2 of The Trajectory Africa.
In this episode, I chat with Dotun Olowoporoku (also known as Dr. Dotun), who most recently served as the Associate Investment Director for Novastar Ventures.
Before Novastar, Dotun was a Venture Partner with Potential VC in the UK, the Founder and Managing Partner of GrowthLab (formerly Starta), a platform making it easier to build, discover, and track high growth business opportunities in Africa, the Founder of meals.co.uk, a food delivery service, and last but not least, the Executive Producer and Host of Building the Future podcast, which features conversations with innovators, entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders who are shaping Africa’s future. You should definitely check it out and subscribe, if you haven’t already.
Dotun and I talked about his circuitous journey to becoming an Africa-focused investor, what his initial assumptions and mental models were when he started investing, what changed when he gained investing experience, how he uses external trend data to make decisions, the impact of governance on innovation, and why now is an unprecedented time for Africans to solve African problems. I hope you enjoy the conversation!
You’re also welcome to check out this throwback op-ed that explores the stumbling blocks to funding African startups, which I wrote in 2018 for the run-up to Afrobytes’ annual event. The piece was published in French by the Institut Jean Lecanuet - France Forum, but I never got around to sharing it in English. When I stumbled upon a draft during a random moment of digital rummaging, I realized that the key themes are still relevant. Section 2, which touches on talent, mirrors Dotun’s thoughts on how critically indigenous talent is needed to unlock startup opportunities in Africa. Meanwhile, section 1 teases the potential challenges posed by unicorn hunting, traditional fund structures, and Silicon Valley-style exit expectations and section 3 explores the challenges of charting a path toward growth and expansion. Perhaps not surprisingly, the latter two are topics tackled in Chasing Outliers, a report on early stage investing in Africa that I co-published with Tony Chen and Osarumen Osamuyi.
Also, last week I hosted the very first Trajectory Africa Clubhouse room with
Eugene Baah, where we had a fantastic conversation with Tony about debunking “good and reasonable” assumptions about African VC. We’ll host these dialogues with episode guests once a month, so please feel free to follow me on Clubhouse (@temitoa) Twitter (@Tayo_Akinyemi), or LinkedIn to get the details for upcoming conversations.
Finally, if you’re looking for a fresh, data-driven take on the debate surrounding the bias toward African investors and founders, check out this thoughtful piece by
Nacho Nwana. It’s definitely a worthwhile read.
Until next time,
Tayo