Nigeria's high-profile angel investor creates new fund to invest in African startups

One of the well-known angel investors in Nigeria's tech sector, Olumide Soyombo has announced the launch of a new fund, Voltron Capital, a Pan-African VC firm co-founded with US-based investor and entrepreneur Abe Choi.

Voltron Capital will invest capital in up to 30 startups, in Pre-seed and seed stage across the continent in an attempt to "address the severe lack of access to early-stage funding for African tech companies." The capital will range from $20,000 to $100,000 focusing particularly on Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and North Africa.

Before Soyombo started investing in startups, he co-founded Bluechip Technologies with his friend, Kazeem Tewogbade. The startup was an enterprise company that provides data warehousing solutions and enterprise applications to big firms such as banks, insurance companies, and telcos. Some of its clients include OEMs like Oracle.

Since 2014, Soyombo has invested in 33 tech startups including Paystack, PiggyVest and TeamApt. The angle investor is one of the few founder-cum-investors in Africa, who, despite his company not being the traditional V-backed startup, according to TechCrunch. Soyombo and his partner decided to venture into tech six years after starting their company and began investing in startups via LeadPath. The goal was to invest $25,000 and take the startups through a three-month accelerator program and to also run LeadPath like Y Combinator which didn't end up as planned.

"In 2014, three months after we found out that there was no investor to put them in front of. So you'd have to write another check yourself," Soyombo said. "We quickly saw that the accelerator model didn't work, so we star ed investing individually. It's funny how things have changed since then."

The pair changed their plans and made LeadPath to act as a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for them to process their investment deals as angel investors. Over the years, Soyombo has launched several SPVs to serve the same purpose.

"I get the privilege of seeing many deals before most people see them," Soyombo spoke about his leverage in the investing scope. "I've built that network within the startup ecosystem and reputation as an angel always ready to help. So obviously that made me see many deals very quickly."

The angel investor said he has a keen eye for investing opportunities. His deal flows ar often filled with startups seeking six-figure funding in Pre-seed and seed. For example, if a founder or startup is seeking $200,000 in capital, Soyombo can offer $50,000 of his money and get other angel investors aboard to complete the amount, depending on his perception and growth prospect of the company.