Voltron Capital
Could Olumide Soyombo’s Voltron Africa have been the most prolific local venture capital firm on the continent in 2022? Here is a list and analysis of the 53 startups in which Voltron has invested.
Voltron Capital is a venture capital firm co-founded by entrepreneur-angel investors, Olumide Soyombo and Abe Choi.
Prior to coming together to found Voltron, Soyombo and Choi had collectively invested in more than 41 startups as angel investors; Soyombo had invested in 26 startups while Choi had invested in 15.
Launching in the third quarter of 2021, Voltron’s mission is “to support extraordinary entrepreneurs outside of Africa to solve important problems in large markets”. Their investment thesis is to back exciting founders in big markets, where big markets mean big exits, and investing early means big multiples.
With Voltron’s Fund 1, they intended to invest $20,000 to $100,000 in 30 startups based in Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, and North Africa. But exceeded that.
If you’re known for angel investing, you’ll get a lot of inbound and your initial expectations will be stretched.
Of the tons of inbounds Voltron received, they were able to meet 500 companiesimplying that they were meeting with two startups every business day.
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Including public holidays, there were 260 working days in 2022, this is after removing 53 Saturdays and 52 Sundays.
I asked Olumide how his team was able to achieve this and he explained to me that they had a very good signal. “Most of our deal flow comes from founders we’ve backed and other co-investors,” says Olumide Soyombo.
In September 2022, Voltron closed Fund 1 after investing in 53 startups, a 10% acceptance rate reminiscent of what we see at top business schools. In 2016, Harvard Business School’s acceptance rate was 12%, Wharton had 9%, and Columbia had 18.2%.
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True to fashion, the 53 startups are led by non-solo founders totaling 113. So every startup Voltron invested in had at least two co-founders, one of whom is most likely a tech co-founder. In February 2021, Olumide told Benjamindada.com that he preferred to invest in a group of founders, with a technical co-founder. Here is an excerpt from that article:
What specific characteristics do you look for in the founders you invest in? Are you looking for technical founders?
I generally like teams more than solo founders. And I think technical co-founders are essential. I prefer technical founders/co-founders because it reduces the raise amount. Imagine if you need to increase for your development and you outsource to a development store or in India. This increases the amount that needs to be raised to prove viability. So yeah, we like tech founders as part of the team.
Additionally, they backed all but one of these startups in the pre-seed stage.
All startups Voltron has invested in are headquartered in seven African countries—Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Morocco, Senegal, Rwanda and Uganda.
The first three are members of the “big four”, so that’s normal. But interestingly, Rwanda and Uganda made the list because they had very low startup funding activity in 2022. According to our Africa Startup Funding Tracker, there was only only one investment activity disclosed for startups headquartered in Rwanda and three in Uganda.
Voltron’s Fund 1 startups operate in 14 key industries which include financial services (43.4%), crypto (11%), education and healthcare (7.5%).
Comparing Voltron’s portfolio investment ratio to the continental average, they were very much in line with the rest of the industry when it came to investments in HealthTechs (7.5%). Closely aligned with EdTechs (5%) while very bullish on Crypto (3.9%) and fintechs (30%).
Over 30% of Voltron’s portfolio companies (portcos) have been accepted into top global accelerators like YC and Techstars. Thus attracting the attention of tier 1 venture capitalists.
Meet the 53 startups from Voltron’s first fund
The 53 startups are: